Hello Wizard World
by Aquarius Galuxy
Summary: Strange things are happening in Surrey. Cloaked figures are appearing at random and waving little sticks, doing very awful things to people they cross. Tenten bars herself at home on Privet Drive, and hopes for the best. NejiTen.
1. Strange Things Happening

_This was inspired by a conversation with _expiration_, during which the prompt "pretending to be wizards" was brought up. ;) This is the result of that. _

_Hello Wizard World is set in Little Whinging, around the beginning of the 7th book, Deathly Hallows. I screwed around with canon somewhat. ;) Story is similar to _Elf Prince, Digivolve! _in the sense that Neji and Tenten react to major events happening around them._

_Naruto, Harry Potter and their characters do not belong to me._

* * *

**Hello Wizard World**

**Chapter 1: Strange Things Happening**

The air was stifling tonight, muggy, heavy, and earthy with scents of summer. Tenten had most of the windows in her house closed, which didn't help. In the background, the TV buzzed its high-pitched frequency as the newscaster pulled up yet more incident reports from around the area - mysterious, cloaked people were beginning to appear at random - first Woking, then Guildford - threatening civilians with little sticks.

Strangely enough, people were getting affected by them, even though there weren't any visible injuries to be witnessed.

On more than one occasion, the victims had clutched at their bodies and screamed bloodcurdling screams, writhing as though their very skins were on fire. The news crews themselves were targeted, and even the newscaster herself looked a little pale as she watched her colleagues get taken down by these cloaked figures.

Tenten swallowed nervously, and continued to slice her bell peppers into thin strips.

_Slice, slice slice. Turn the strips clockwise, and dice them to form tiny, tiny cubes._ The pot on the stove already held her onions, hot peppers and tomatoes, and it wasn't too much work to add the remaining ingredients to get her relish started.

After all, she couldn't sleep. With news breaking every half hour or so, she didn't dare sleep.

Especially because those attacks were getting closer and closer to where she lived in Little Whinging, Surrey.

All the lights in her house were off, save for the kitchen, which faced her backyard. Both the windows and thick curtains were drawn shut - there weren't any bug nets on the windows here, unlike the houses over in America or Australia. Besides, Tenten didn't want sounds she made in the kitchen to be easily discernible to whoever may be lurking outside.

She shivered. Who knew what the motives of the cloaked figures were?

Privet Drive didn't seem a very safe place to be at the moment, but she didn't really know where else she could go - most of her friends lived around Surrey, too, and she wasn't sure if going to them would help much, if at all.

Maybe the terrorists would miss Little Whinging completely, and head to Aldershot next.

The bell peppers were completely diced up soon enough - she figured she'd make half a batch of relish tonight (if she was still alive by tomorrow, she'd make another batch of relish) and scooped them into her large pot. Sugar, salt and cayenne powder went in next, followed by two different types of vinegar, and Tenten turned the heat on, stirring the mixture with a wooden spatula.

_"Another attack has been reported near the Central Library of Sutton,"_ the newscaster said, interrupting the international news that she had been in the middle of going through. _"Two men have been pronounced dead just meters away from the library three minutes ago. Paramedics have not been able to pinpoint the cause of death, although multiple witnesses from a nearby fish-and-chips restaurant have reported that two cloaked figures vanished into thin air after a flash of green light-"_

Tenten winced and swallowed. No one she knew lived in Sutton, which was perhaps a good thing. But then again, Sutton was a big town, and Little Whinging was not. There would be few places to hide, if they targeted this place next.

Maybe they'd head further away from Surrey and across the North Sea next. Or maybe the Atlantic. Lots of people across the pond.

The doorbell rang, and Tenten almost jumped out of her skin.

Her hands turned sweaty; she was glad that she was done chopping her bell peppers up.

Cautiously, she set her spatula down, and crept into the living room, where her only source of light was the cathode-ray TV.

There were a number of booby traps that she'd set while it was still bright in the house, shortly after news reports of the random attacks had begun. It was by sheer good memory that she knew where exactly to pick her foot up, and how high to lift it, to avoid setting off her (very lethal, if she might say so herself) traps.

The streetlamps were still on, their orange glow bouncing off her curtains and onto the painted walls surrounding the windows. Tenten steered clear of the door (what if the person was looking through her peephole? He or she would still be able to see movement in the distorted image) and eased into her study. Carefully, with her breath held, she lifted the edge of the curtains further away from the front door, and peeked through the window.

A black Ferrari was parked right in front of her home, and she sighed with relief at its appearance.

Quickly, Tenten made her way to the front door, glanced through the peephole (she couldn't be too sure, with all that was happening today), and unlocked the door, throwing it open.

Neji Hyuuga stood on her doorstep, pale eyes snapping towards her. He had been surveying his surroundings, and Tenten barely glanced at his jeans and button-down shirt before dragging him into her living room, plastic bags and all.

"Have you heard?" she hissed. With practiced ease, she snapped all the locks and deadbolts on her door into place, and turned around to pull him into a tight hug. He had not been contactable at all the entire day - it was the last day of a trial that had dragged on for too long.

"Who hasn't?" he rumbled, though his strong arms wrapped around her back and shoulders, and the plastic bags bumped into her side. "You're living in a cave, Tenten."

She rolled her eyes, immensely glad that he was with her, now. "Well yeah, I don't want to have all my lights on and be advertising a party in the middle of the night. The Spanish Inquisition will be upon us faster than you know it."

He snorted lightly, but said little else.

"Come on in, I'm not turning the living room lights on for anything," she told him. "But be careful, there're traps around here."

Neji sighed behind her, and she could imagine the resignation on his beautiful, regal face. "How confident are you that I'll manage _not_ to kill the both of us with your invisible strings?"

Tenten paused. "Not very."

"Is there a path that isn't trapped?" he asked next, and she could hear the faint amusement in his baritone.

She paused again. "No."

"So how do you propose I reach the kitchen unscathed?"

There were several solutions to that, though the quickest way... "I'll guide you to the kitchen. You in front, me in the back, and I'll use my legs to show you how high up to go."

It was also the most awkward solution.

Neji grunted his agreement, and Tenten winced.

"At least we can do this without getting all embarrassed with each other," she said lightly, and pulled away from him, turning him around to face the easiest route.

Of all the things Tenten imagined herself to be doing, she did not expect it to be pressed up against her best friend, leading him through her living room while they avoided trip wires that could send any number of knives through their bodies in the next second. With murderers and torturers on the loose somewhere in Surrey, no less.

It was oddly arousing.

Sure, they had been best friends for years now, since secondary school, though it was only recently, when she'd realized that she was, in fact, in love with him, that it became a little awkward to touch him. Mostly because her imagination would begin to wander.

To take her mind off their current situation, Tenten held Neji's arms firmly and peered around him. There were plenty of tripwires where there was open space, so she guided him towards the couches, and pressed her leg to the back of his, to lift his foot clear of the one low wire.

She wanted to strike a conversation, she really did, just to hear his voice, but decided against it when Neji stiffened in her arms suddenly, as if he'd felt his foot catch on a wire.

Tenten threw her weight onto him, toppling them both onto the couch, seconds before they heard whizzes in the air pass where they would've stepped next.

"That was close," Neji muttered beneath her.

"At least we know it works," she answered lightly, pleased that the response time of her traps was relatively swift.

Slowly, she picked herself off him and led him back to the kitchen, before offering him a mug of tea.

"Green tea, please," he answered absently, glancing around her kitchen.

"Never grew fond of English breakfast tea, did you?" Tenten asked lightly, reaching over her counter for a tin of green tea leaves. She pulled his usual mug out from a cupboard and dispensed tea and hot water from a vacuum flask into it.

"Thanks. It doesn't seem as though you've deviated far from your Asian roots, either," Neji said, setting his bags down on the counter. He took his mug from her and looked to her pot of (decidedly-not-Asian) relish, where it was now bubbling merrily. "More relish?"

Tenten cursed and turned it down to a simmer, stirring the mixture lightly. With that done, she noted the time, turned back to Neji, and smiled. "Hey, I made it less spicy this time - you won't faint after taking a bite."

He narrowed his eyes at her.

"You must have inherited it from your Japanese roots, since real _wasabi_ isn't all that spicy," she told him.

Neji belonged to a prominent Japanese family located in London, famous for being lawyers through their generations. His great-grandparents had migrated and settled in Britain long ago, bringing their strict family traditions with them. Tenten, herself, had been to a couple of his family's townhouses - regal, expensive places, not unlike how his family looked and dressed.

And his uncle Hiashi - gods, his uncle Hiashi - was he the most uptight person she'd ever had the misfortune to meet.

Hiashi Hyuuga wasn't too fond of her, either, but Tenten was content with staying well away from the rest of Neji's family.

"Heaven help me if you ever decide to make one of those Szechuan dishes again," Neji muttered, glancing askance at her. "I swear, your parents brought you up on red hot peppers."

"That makes me spicy, doesn't it?" she winked at him, grinning, and Neji looked away, unamused.

Like Neji, her own parents had passed away years ago, roughly when she was getting to know Neji better, and their mutual loss had helped draw them closer. It was not something they talked about much these days, though.

"C'mon, Neji, you know you like me spicy," Tenten teased, nudging him in the side.

He merely shrugged, sent her a long-suffering glance, and returned to the plastic bags he'd brought in with him.

"What'd you bring?" she asked, curious now. "I hope there's Eccles cakes in there."

Neji gave her a smug look then, and fished a small, printed bag out of a larger carrier. Tenten squealed - she recognized the brown logo of the bakery in the middle of town. "You got them!"

Her stomach growled, and Tenten took the bag from him, reaching in for the individually-wrapped pastries.

"I could bang you for this," she gushed, missing Neji's arched eyebrow while she tore open the paper packaging.

An Eccles cake was a round, flat pastry, smaller than her palm and coated with sugar. Tenten bit into hers, encountering sweetness as sugar dissolved on her tongue. The buttery, flaky crust broke, and it was moments before she tasted the rich currant filling in the center of the snack.

Neji was still watching her by the time she opened her eyes and sucked her fingers off, a silly grin on her face. "You looked as if you were in the throes of pleasure," he told her dryly.

She was caught off-guard for a moment, and blinked stupidly at him, before she realized two things: one, that she would love to have Neji see her in the throes of pleasure, and two, that she wanted to know how uncomfortable she could get him by spouting something sexual - he was always reserved on the topic of sex.

_"Another report has been made about an attack in Aldershot - three men have been murdered in cold blood just outside the train station,"_ the newscaster announced, effectively breaking the hazy cloud of lust in her head.

Tenten cringed, and felt cool fingers of fear grip her stomach again. "Bloody hell," she swore, glancing at Neji. "Did you run into any trouble while you were on your way here?"

He frowned and shook his head, glancing towards the TV. "There was hardly any disturbance in the area, though I may have seen strangely-dressed people around."

She froze. Thought about the little sticks she'd seen the cloaked figures on TV wave around. "Do you believe in magic?" Tenten whispered, glancing towards the kitchen window.

Neji frowned. "Isn't that a mere myth?"

"How do you explain what's been happening, then?" she returned. "Mysterious deaths and torture without physical evidence. It's just like a gruesome fairy tale come alive."

"There has to be another explanation for it," Neji insisted. He leaned against the stone counter and folded his arms, surveying her. "I've never seen evidence of magic."

"What if they erased memories of people who've seen it?" Tenten pursed her lips. If there was magic involved, then surely the people wielding it would be capable of anything. "What if you're an impostor?"

He stared at her. "You can't be serious."

"Hell yeah, I am," she insisted, folding her arms. "What's my deepest, darkest secret?"

Neji breathed a sigh. "Do you really want me to say that out loud?"

Tenten winced, but nodded. "It's for your sake and mine."

"You're still embarrassed by how you announced to the entire class that you were the best at advanced math, when in fact, I was," he informed her. "Just before we took the O-levels. You were so embarrassed that you hid for days."

"I wish you didn't bring that up," she muttered. The familiar burn crept up her cheeks, and Tenten grimaced. "Well, at least I know you're the real deal."

"And how would I know that you're not a fake?" Neji asked in return, clearly enjoying the game. The corners of his lips twitched.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Just by how I knew where all my traps were?"

"That knife attack was a little slow in coming," Neji acknowledged easily, and she glowered at him. "It's a little below your usual standards."

"Why you-" Tenten pushed away from her counter, and started towards him.

"You haven't told me who you've got a crush on yet," Neji said, and she stilled, frozen to the tiled floor.

Her face completed its transformation into an overripe tomato.

Tenten jerked her gaze away from him, and started back towards her pot of relish, giving it a too-violent stir. "I don't have a crush," she muttered.

What Neji didn't know was that she had a new deepest, darkest secret. And it was him.

He smirked. "At least tell me if it's someone we know."

"It doesn't concern you," she told him, still stirring the pot, even though it no longer required stirring.

"A neighbor?" Neji pressed.

"For the last time, I'm not telling you anything about it," she snapped, frowning at her pot of more-red-than-green relish. "Zero. Zilch."

He stepped closer to her, and Tenten tensed when his hard chest pressed against her back, and his breath tickled her ear. Her heart tried to leap out of her rib cage.

"Tententen," he whispered, a nickname that he hadn't used in ages.

Her receding blush returned, and Tenten felt her body respond to him. Her heart fluttered; her center grew slick with heat. She wanted to pin him down on the floor, and ride him until he-

"Neji," she grit, leaning away from him with all she had.

"You used to like it when I stood close to you," he pointed out quietly, stepping away.

That was before she started thinking about what else he could be doing while he stood behind her. Like bending her over, for instance.

Tenten groaned, and drew a deep breath. "I- I just need some space."

He moved to stand next to her, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and Tenten's heart almost imploded.

Neji's family would expect him to marry someone worthy of his status - someone the exact opposite of herself. She had no family left, she didn't have a prestigious job like he did (she was a freelancing writer), and worst of all, Tenten was convinced that Neji's relatives would not welcome her as an addition to the family. So she winced, and tucked that information back where it belonged.

"It doesn't seem healthy for you to keep hiding it like that," he pointed out evenly, and she frowned.

"It'll go away," she told him. "It's nothing to be concerned about."

He looked dubiously at her, but didn't comment on it. "How much longer do we have to stay up for?"

Thankful for the change in topic, Tenten glanced towards the wall clock. "Well... It's an hour longer before this is done simmering. And I'll need an additional half hour to can everything."

Neji acknowledged her words with a nod. "For a moment there, I thought we'd have to stay up all night."

She frowned at him then, and glanced towards the TV. Worry settled back into her gut. "I don't know if I can sleep."

"You're worried about that?" he asked, glancing out of the window. "From what I've seen, it's not a mass murder. It appears that people who stay out on the streets are more liable to be targeted."

"Are you going to work tomorrow?" she asked nervously. If anything happened to Neji...

"I told Uchiha that I'll be working from home tomorrow," Neji replied, pulling his phone out to check for messages. "He's staying in as well. Doctor's orders."

Tenten smiled, thinking of their pink-haired mutual friend (more of hers than Neji's). "Sure is convenient to be married to a doctor. You get a never-ending supply of medical leave-"

"Married to _that_ doctor, he's also been on the receiving end of the worst punches," Neji informed her dryly. "You haven't seen some of his bruises."

She blinked, momentarily forgetting about her worries. "Henpecked, much?"

Neji shrugged. "He seems almost happy with it."

Tenten felt her eyebrows crawl up her forehead; Sasuke Uchiha was the most uptight person next to Neji's uncle, and similar to Neji before he loosened up some. To think of him being on the receiving end of Sakura's punches...

"I think my brain just broke," she told Neji, gaping at him. "Aren't you glad you aren't henpecked."

He sent her a questioning stare. "And who would be the one pummeling me into submission?"

She giggled. "I don't know, have you been dating anyone without telling me who it is?"

He angled an almost-offended look at her. "I tell you if I do."

"So you are dating someone currently," Tenten suggested.

None of Neji's relationships ever amounted to much, and he brushed their failures off as him having commitment issues. Sometimes, he said his girlfriends were jealous of her being his best friend. She couldn't blame them for it - Neji didn't keep them around long, either.

"No, not at the moment." Neji shook his head slightly, though he didn't seem troubled by the fact.

"No desire to shag someone yet, huh?" she asked innocently.

He frowned at her. "That's not the point of a-"

"I know, I know," Tenten interrupted with a grin, heading over to him and draping her arm over his shoulder. "Get to know them first, and then bonk them."

"Tenten!" Neji pulled out of her one-armed hug, turning to face her head-on. His lilac eyes were narrowed, and she smiled, tapping him on the chest.

"When did you last... you know." It wasn't like she was curious about who he slept with, but Tenten didn't turn down the opportunity to imagine him doing... things. Preferably with herself, of course.

"Do I have to answer that?" he asked sullenly. (She knew she always got the answers to her questions, though.)

"You tell me whenever I ask," Tenten reminded him. "Besides, it's not like I ask what exactly you do with them, or how many times they scream your name-"

"Three weeks." He was looking at the clock.

She lifted her eyebrows, surprised. "That's a pretty long time, by your standards."

Neji shrugged. "I've been busy."

"Or is your libido waning? Are you getting old, Neji?" She grinned, and put a hand to his forehead.

He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled her hand off his face, leaning in to frown at her. "Been busy. Let's change the subject."

"Fine," Tenten huffed, backing off. "How long do you think we're going to need to stay in here? I don't have all that much food stocked up."

With a casual wave, he motioned towards the bags he'd set on her counter. "I brought some food, if you haven't noticed. Fruits and some canned things."

She brightened, and headed over to the bags to see if there was anything that needed to go into the fridge. Neji didn't get any fresh veggies, so she placed the fruits in cold storage, and stashed cookies and canned food in her pantry. There was also his laptop satchel, that she'd missed somehow, and a small bag of spare clothes.

"Staying for a while, huh?" she asked, glancing at him. "You do have some clothes here already, you know."

He shrugged. "I thought it would be prudent to bring extras."

Tenten remembered the stripped guest bed suddenly, and swore. "The guest bed sheets are still in the washer," she blurted, "I figured you might drop by at some point, and began to wash the sheets. Unfortunately, I've been too distracted to dry them."

She waved towards the pot of relish sheepishly.

Neji lifted an eyebrow and thought for a while. "Assuming the couches are out of the question," he began, glancing towards the living room. Tenten shook her head emphatically. "I could share your bed. It's not like I'm dating anyone currently, anyway."

She turned around to stir her relish, though it was mostly to hide the prickle of heat on her cheeks. "Sure."

The thought of his warm body pressed against hers sent her mind straight into the gutter, and Tenten had to focus on her breathing to clear her thoughts.

"I could always just get the dryer going," Neji offered from beside her, and Tenten glanced towards him, surprised by his sudden proximity. "That'll give me dry sheets."

"No!" she yelped.

Neji stared at her in question, and she froze.

"Well, I mean, the dryer is right next to the outer wall of the house - it can be heard from the outside while in operation," she blathered, her cheeks pink. "Safety first."

He studied her carefully. "One might almost think you were trying to get me in bed with you, Tenten," he said quietly, a hint of amusement flitting across his countenance. "If it wasn't for how you've never hit on me seriously through the time I've known you, I would've thought otherwise."

She was on the verge of telling him how past events may or may not indicate future performances, but held her tongue instead. There was no point letting him know more than he should, anyway.

So Tenten huffed, folded her arms across her chest, and changed the topic. "Anyhow, I'm glad you thought to ring the doorbell instead of using the key I gave you."

"Given the news breaking every fifteen minutes, I figured my chances of not being skewered were higher if I did not open the door," Neji informed her, leaning against the counter. He smirked, and watched as she stirred the relish again. Tenten grinned at him. "How much longer?"

"Half an hour until this is done, then I begin canning," she told him.

"Time to lay on the flirtatious remarks?" he asked lightly.

Tenten rolled her eyes. "I have better ways to kill time, Hyuuga."

"Like? Exchanging creative dirty talk?"

She scoffed, and burst out laughing at the humor in his eyes. "Your libido's acting up. Guess you weren't getting old, after all."

"You make me feel young, Miss," he said, with a heavier northern accent, pretending to tip his hat, and Tenten cracked up, clutching her middle.

"I never thought you'd grow into a dirty old man, Neji!" she gasped, in between bouts of hysterical laughter. "I bet you'd charm the skirts off all the girls on the streets!"

"In which case, you'll be invited to witness the orgy," he replied with a straight face. "I would be at the epitome of my youth."

She choked on her saliva, and laughed until she couldn't breathe. The reference to youth was courtesy of their mutual friend, Lee, and his adoptive father, Mr Gai, both of whom tended to go overboard with green clothing and exclamations about spring.

"Those beautiful blossoms would be lining up with their petals spread," she agreed, giggling helplessly. "And they'll moan in ecstasy while you deflower them with your shoot of love-"

"That's enough, Tenten," Neji interrupted, a tint of pink on his cheeks.

She caught his embarrassment, and couldn't help but continue, "You'd be dipping your manly branch into their honeypots full of nectar-"

"Tenten," he repeated, and was beside her before she could process his movements, pressing his lips to her temple.

She froze then, immediately, all traces of humor wiped from her mind.

"What?" Tenten yelped, jerking away, her heart coming to life in her chest. Neji was looking at her earnestly; it felt as if there was only him and her in the kitchen, and she couldn't breathe, couldn't remember what was going on outside, or what the newscaster was suddenly announcing-

The front door crashed open with a bang.

Tenten whipped her head around at the same time Neji did, and standing in her doorway, against a backdrop of orange flames, was a cloaked figure with a pointed hat.

* * *

_A/N: (1) This is easily the most difficult fic I've written to date - writing speed is like half of everything else, mainly due to motivation and unfamiliarity with setting. I realize that Brits have a bunch of slang... but I'm not sure just how much of it Neji and Tenten should be using - the characters in HP don't use it much either. Feedback on voices would be helpful!_

_(2) I have roughly 3 chapters of this written so far - if anyone has (short story) ideas regarding Neji and Tenten getting exposed to the magical world, feel free to drop me a line. _

_(3) Are you guys busy? I noticed that feedback on Blackmail has been decreasing, and am wondering if there should be larger intervals between updates so you'll have time to catch up._

_(4) Am currently also working on a NejiTen oneshot set in Singapore - DMHG, thank you for the unintentional reminder, it was inspiring somehow. :P_

_Thoughts about the wizard fic? Comments? Feedback? Feel free to drop a review, I need a lot of motivation to finish this.. ugh :(_


	2. The Intruder

_Special thanks to _SnailBytes_, _Miniature Criminal_, _Yahboobeh_ and _expiration_ for the suggestions! They really helped me out of the motivation rut. :)_

_Naruto, Harry Potter and their characters do not belong to me._

* * *

**Hello Wizard World**

**Chapter 2: The Intruder**

Neji swore and grabbed Tenten around the waist, flinging them both behind the kitchen wall, and out of sight of the intruder.

Not a moment later, a green flash of light struck the wall above the sink, leaving a charred, sizzling mark on the ivory paint.

Tenten's eyes grew wide. That wasn't a shot from a gun; it looked exactly like the flash of green that she'd glimpsed on a video footage from earlier in the day, when similar cloaked figures lifted people up into the air, and turned them upside down, before killing them in cold blood.

"Muggles!" the intruder exclaimed eagerly, his voice low and throaty. "You want to play games, don't you-"

A series of thuds rang out, followed by a raw cry of pain. Tenten had a second to hope that her knives were sufficient to take the man down, when dull clangs sounded, like her knives were being dropped onto each other on the carpet.

"_Lumos_," came the ragged mutter. A soft, golden glow filled the room, visible from where they were behind the kitchen wall.

Tenten froze next to Neji, who backed them away. He moved her behind himself. She wanted to yell at him, because there was no way she was letting him defend her - what if he died?

"_Reducto_!" was the next curse, and the kitchen wall next to them blew apart, sending pieces of plasterboard flying everywhere, accompanied by a cloud of dust.

Tenten barely bit a scream down. She couldn't move; Neji forced them to the floor hard, so the stone counter provided shelter from the intruder. Dust entered her eyes and made them water.

Vaguely, she saw the light dusting of debris on Neji's ebony hair. His pale eyes darted around in a search for any weapon he can use to defend them with - Tenten didn't think there was any that could withstand someone who was hurling explosives, who survived her knife attack.

She leaned her forehead into Neji's heaving chest, and wondered if they would die here. His name was a whisper on her lips. He curled protectively over her, and she wanted to tell him not to give up his life for hers-

"You can run, but you can't hide, little muggles," the intruder growled, his words tainted with bloodthirsty mirth.

He paused suddenly, and more thuds sounded. This time, his cry was anguished and outraged. Tenten winced, and tried to push Neji off her, so she could peek at their attacker. Perhaps her volley of knives from various directions had got him. Neji forced her back down.

The voice grew closer. "_Incen_-"

There was a longer series of dull thuds and a choked gurgle, and seconds later, the loud thump of a body hitting the floor.

Tenten gulped. She exchanged a glance with Neji, hearing her heart pound deafeningly in her ears. Quickly, she flicked her eyes towards the living room, silently asking if they should investigate. Neji shook his head.

_Not yet,_ he mouthed.

They waited in silence for long, painful moments, and Tenten was certain she still had a level head only because Neji was with her. He pulled her snug against his chest, and she listened to the loud _thumpthumpthump_s of his heart.

"Dolohov!" a new, gruff voice shouted from the front door.

Tenten flinched. Neji tensed against her.

The new intruder cut a surprised oath. "Dolohov! Quit fooling around! We have to be at Potter's place in ten!"

Heavy footsteps thudded into the living room, and Tenten glanced around the kitchen, wondered where else they could hide.

"Bloody hell, the git's dead," the second intruder swore. "By knife wounds, no less."

He scoffed, and there was a short moment of silence, as if he were looking around the living room and kitchen for any sign of Dolohov's attackers.

"Can't even do a proper job," the man muttered.

"Rowle!" a third voice yelled, from somewhere outside the house. "Change of plan! Get here right now!"

The second intruder cursed, and lumbered out, but not before muttering a casual "_Incendio_!"

A bright orange glow lit the living room; Tenten gasped at the sudden wave of heat. Neji's gaze sharpened - he'd felt it as well. He didn't stop her when she pushed herself to her feet, instead rising along with her.

Huge, orange flames had consumed her couch, and were licking up towards the ceiling. The heat was so great that the surrounding furniture was starting to char, and sweat broke out in little beads on her forehead. It felt as if her skin was being scorched off.

"We need to put it out," Neji told her urgently.

Tenten frowned and nodded, sprinting to her pantry. She yanked the door open, grabbed the fire extinguisher, and began spraying white foam over her couch, taking care to avoid any additional trip wires that had not been triggered yet.

In a few minutes, the fire was smothered, and a thick layer of white foam covered the furniture in her living room. Neji took this time to make his way carefully to the door. He peeked out to ensure that there weren't any witnesses to their presence, and shut the door quietly, turning back to Tenten.

"Your front yard's charred. And so is the inside of my car," Neji reported.

Tenten winced in sympathy. A Ferrari cost a lot of money. "And we have a dead man in the room."

"I need some light over here," he told her, gesturing towards the first intruder, Dolohov. All she could see of the man was his pointed hat, a black cloak, and various knives protruding from his back.

She pursed her lips - it would not do to have light escaping from behind the curtains at this time. Instead, Tenten fished a flashlight from a cabinet by the wall, tossing it to Neji.

_Is he dead?_ she mouthed, turning such that her face caught the light from the kitchen.

Neji shrugged, and stepped on the backs of Dolohov's hands, so he would not be able to move them, should he still be alive. For good measure, Neji bashed the end of the flashlight against Dolohov's head.

"My flashlight!" Tenten yelped.

"I'll handle him. Check around the house to make sure that nothing else nearby is on fire," Neji instructed. "Don't go out."

"Are you sure? He could come alive like in those horror movies and possess you," Tenten answered nervously. She brought the fire extinguisher closer to Neji and the corpse, gripping it tightly.

"Check his pulse, then," Neji said. "I'll turn him around after we're sure that he's dead."

Tenten winced. She crouched down next to Dolohov's head, tugged his wooden stick from his grip, and tossed it across the room, just in case. Neji raised an eyebrow at her; she shrugged, and released one hand from her fire extinguisher, pressing two fingers to the man's still-warm neck for two minutes, just in case.

"No pulse," she told Neji, and pulled away from the body, squeamish. "But we need to check his other vitals just to be sure - heart, breathing, eyes."

He nodded, and stepped back onto the floor. Tenten winced when Neji gripped Dolohov's shoulder and side and turned him over, half-expecting the man to come alive, and fire more green beams at them.

He didn't.

She breathed a sigh when the dead intruder remained motionless. Half of Dolohov's scruffy, sallow face was bloody - a knife was embedded into his eye socket, and there were more daggers sticking out from his throat and chest. Dark liquid oozed from deep cuts all over his body. Tenten guessed that, when he was alive, Dolohov wasn't much of a looker either - he had deep-set eyes and the rest of his oval face was covered in short, dark facial hair.

Neji rested one foot on Dolohov's thigh, and another on the open palm of his hand, while Tenten pressed her knee into his chest, and pinned his other hand down.

Just in case. One never knew what one was facing where magic was concerned.

"Good job with the traps," Neji said quietly.

She smiled tightly, holding a finger to Dolohov's nostrils for a minute. No movement of air. Next, she pressed her ear to the man's chest - no heartbeat. Neji handed the flashlight to her, and Tenten grimaced when she pried Dolohov's intact eyelid up. His eye was glassy, brown pupil dilated even under the harsh glare of the flashlight.

"He's dead," she confirmed, and stepped away with a wince. "Even so, I don't feel comfortable having a dead guy in the house - he could be used as a vessel to attack us-"

"Save that imagination for your stories," Neji told her dryly, taking the flashlight back from her. "As it is, I'm not sure what to think of you knowing what to look out for in a dead person."

Tenten slanted a wry smile at him. "Side effect of doing research for stories. My Google history has the most incriminating searches."

"I'm not surprised." Neji smirked. He crouched down next to Dolohov, sweeping the glow of the torch over the man's body.

"This just takes the cake, though," she muttered, gesturing towards Dolohov. "I've never had to consider what I'd do with a dead wizard."

"We're going to have to get rid of him," Neji reminded her solemnly, surveying the foam-covered furniture. "Or inform the police, and have them get rid of it."

"I know," Tenten sighed, and grimaced. "Never thought I'd be committing murder, even if it was in self-defense, and not even by my own hands. Think the cops will believe me?"

Neji glanced at the destroyed TV for a while. "It's a possibility."

She bit her lower lip in consideration, then pulled her phone out of her pocket. "I'll call the cops."

The one thing neither of them expected, however, was that the emergency line was busy.

"I've been put on hold for fifteen straight minutes," Tenten griped after a while. "And we actually have a dead guy on our hands!"

Neji shrugged. "He's dead. We can probably wait until tomorrow to make a decision. Besides, it gives us more time to phrase our statement to the police."

Tenten rolled her eyes. "Figures that you'd say something like that."

"It'll work to our benefit," he informed her simply.

She pursed her lips and scanned the living room, wincing at the sheer amount of fire extinguisher foam on her furniture. "We're definitely not leaving him in the house. Somewhere out back. I have tarps around... and the living room needs to be cleared."

"So we'll cover him with extinguisher foam and rubbish," Neji deduced, and Tenten felt herself light up. "We don't want him being found by a wanderer."

"You're a genius," she remarked amusedly. "I was about to suggest the same."

He looked smugly at her.

"First, we strip him of anything useful," Tenten said. "Why don't you do that - I'll look around the house to make sure that everything else is fine. Don't get too much blood on the carpets."

Neji agreed, and they got to work.

There was no sign of any lingering fire from what she could see through her windows. Tenten stepped over the remaining trip wires and climbed up the stairs, to do a secondary check from better vantage points.

In the aftermath of the attack, Privet Drive looked almost serene - little flames were dying down to embers on the street, and it seemed as if only a handful of houses had been targeted. Everyone else stayed indoors and silent. The buildings that had been broken into billowed smoke, with tongues of fire licking at their wooden roofs. A few cars were still smoking, lit by streetlamps that also highlighted the lack of people wandering around. Even the wizards were gone.

Tenten hurried back down the stairs, surveying the damage in her living room. Neji had a pile of things to his side, and Dolohov had been stripped down to his underwear. Her knives lay in another pile not too far away.

"I'll clean up the living room," she told him. "No sign of any wizards at all."

"I wonder what they meant," Neji mused, as he bound Dolohov's hands behind his back with some cotton twine. Tenten didn't bat an eyelid - she didn't want the corpse coming alive somehow, either. Maybe wizards were like werewolves, and they had to drive a stake through his heart first.

"What they meant?" she asked, when Neji began binding Dolohov's ankles.

"They mentioned a change of plan," Neji recounted with a frown. "And something about a Potter's place."

"No one by the name of Potter in this neighborhood," Tenten informed him. "Unless that's a nickname, or some poor kid who's forced to live under his stairs in complete secrecy..."

"That's highly unlikely," Neji scoffed. He winced at the blood that was dribbling from Dolohov's various wounds. Tenten winced along with him. She was going to have to get rid of those stains sooner than later. "This isn't some child predator's neighborhood."

Tenten shrugged. She headed to the kitchen to grab rags and bags for the extinguisher foam, and caught sight of her forgotten relish, still slowly bubbling. "Oh, hell."

"What is it?" Neji asked from the living room.

"My relish," she told him, glancing at the clock. It's been two hours since she started count - probably still salvageable, considering that the pot remained unscathed by everything, except the dust that came from her wall exploding.

It was almost surreal thinking that last thought, especially when one was a fantasy writer. Homes did not explode all the time. At least, not in the world she and Neji lived in.

"You can always start a new batch," Neji told her, nonplussed.

"But I spent forever dicing them up!" Tenten whined. She pulled a face at the pot, then moved it off the stove and turned the burner off. Cleanup still came first, after all.

She grabbed a handful of supplies and returned to her couch. Neji accepted the handkerchief she shoved at him, tying it over his mouth and nose like she did, to prevent himself from inhaling bits of foam.

It took several minutes to get most of the foam off her furniture. Neji went out by the back door to retrieve a large tarp, and wrapped Dolohov into it. Tenten fit a bag of foam over the corpse's head, just in case.

"I guess that counts as experience for writing," she told Neji flatly, when he'd dragged Dolohov out, and covered the tarp with bags of rags and foam. "I'd never had to hide a dead body before."

"I hope this will be the last time," he answered flatly.

She wiped her knives off on clean rags, and went about stringing fresh traps around the front door. The various bolts and locks on the door had been destroyed when Dolohov first made his appearance, and it would no longer lock. To compensate for the lack of security, Tenten forbade Neji from using the front door until further notice, held it in place with a heavy chair, and rigged traps that would go off the moment the door was opened.

"What did you find on him?" she asked moments later, stopping by where Neji had gathered Dolohov's belongings in a plastic bag.

"Various things," he answered, his forehead wrinkling. "There are some things we need to take a closer look at, and I don't want to do it here."

He flicked his eyes towards the front door.

"Hey, I've secured that," Tenten reminded him. "I've trapped the back door too, so don't go out without having me accompany you for it."

Neji acknowledged her words with a nod. "Let's go upstairs. Besides, I think we're in need of a shower."

At his words, Tenten became aware of the sweat, blood and dust on her body. She grimaced in response. "Right. That first."

She retrieved the little stick that she'd snatched from Dolohov's corpse earlier, and dropped it into Neji's bag of loot. With a last look around the ground floor of her home, she heaved a sigh, then headed for the stairs. Neji collected his laptop and spare clothes from the kitchen counter (they were miraculously still intact), switched the light off, and trailed up behind her.

"We're only turning the bathroom light on," Tenten said when she reached the landing of the upper floor. "It's too risky to do any of the other lights."

She groped around for the bathroom light switch, and breathed a sigh of relief when her clean bathroom came into view, sans any grotesque creature waiting to pounce on them. Her imagination was going into overdrive; this was the worst time for it.

"Yeah," Neji agreed. He made his way to her bedroom and deposited his clothes and laptop, before returning to the trapezoidal glow of light the bathroom cast on her hallway carpet. "Are we inspecting Dolohov's belongings or showering first?"

Tenten pulled a face at the plastic bag Neji lifted up, full of the wizard's clothes. "We shower first. I have nitrile gloves in my bedside drawer. Don't touch his things with your bare hands, if you can."

Neji narrowed his eyes at her. "Thanks for telling me now, Tenten."

She gave him a sheepish smile. "Well, with everything that's been going on, there's kinda way too many things to keep tabs on."

"Is there anything else I should know?" Neji asked.

"We probably should leave those things in the spare room while we talk," Tenten suggested. "Tie the bag up, in case there're inanimate objects that have a life of their own, or things like the monkey's paw..."

"Monkey's paw?" he frowned, and Tenten glanced at her mussed hair and dirt-smudged cheeks in her bathroom mirror.

She suppressed a shudder at the thought of such a vile object. "It's a fictional object - something that grants a wish at a high cost to the person making it. You know, say someone wishes for a sum of money. Someone close to him or her will die the next day, and the compensation will be the money he or she wished for."

Neji frowned. "That's just twisted. I didn't think you were superstitious."

Tenten grimaced. "Well, we now know that magic is real. What's to prevent such a thing from existing?"

"That's true," he reluctantly agreed, and turned away to set the bag elsewhere.

With Neji gone momentarily, Tenten began shrugging out of her shirt and pants, and turned the shower on, to give the water time to heat up.

"You don't need me witnessing your shower, do you?" came Neji's dry question a few seconds later.

She straightened and looked back towards him, to see him looking pointedly away, a light tint of pink on his cheeks. Tenten grinned. Despite all that had happened, she was still very much attracted to him, and his was a welcome presence in light of the current events.

"I'd rather you stay in the same room as me, though," she admitted. "Wizards, and probably witches, exist. Next thing we know, the X-Men will poof into existence, ninja turtles will haunt the sewers of New York City, there'll be Iron Man zooming around, and Spiderman crawling up buildings-"

"Tenten."

"-And you know how much I adore Wolverine, Neji, maybe he'll be alive and we'd have hot, animalistic sex-"

"Tenten."

She paused for a while, thinking about a very naked Wolverine, and Neji narrowed his eyes. He folded his arms across his chest.

"_Tenten!_"

She jerked to attention then, to find him looking sourly at her. "Hmm?"

"Kindly refrain from telling me about your fantasies," Neji muttered, his eyebrows drawn low.

"Only because Wolverine is bigger and stronger than you, huh?" she teased with a grin. Neji's expression did not get any less threatening. "Come on, don't you wanna know? You're my best friend!"

"The world will continue to spin if I didn't know," he retorted. "Are you going to shower?"

Tenten rolled her eyes and pretended to sigh. "Yes, yes, I am."

Neji shook his head and closed the door, sealing them into the little bathroom. Tenten swallowed. Sure, she'd been around Neji in her undergarments before, but not when they were in this tiny a space, and not when she was about to get dressed in even less. Would he...?

"I would have brought my laptop in here, if I wasn't concerned about the effects of humidity on the electrical circuits," he grumbled, looking at the far corner of the bathroom.

"You don't have to work so bloody hard, you know," Tenten teased. She reached behind for her bra clasp, and Neji visibly tensed.

What would he do?

Without missing a beat, Tenten undid the bra, and set it on the counter, feeling wet air settle on her skin. Neji was staring very hard at the opposite wall of the room.

"I could wait on the other side of the door," he grit.

"We're best friends, we could probably even shower together," she told him lightly. But her heart was pounding, and none of her nerves showed on her face. In fact, heat was beginning to pool in her belly, and Tenten could feel her thoughts straying towards the gutter.

She should probably stop, before she said something she'd regret.

Faintly noting that her nipples were hard, Tenten turned towards the bath. She pulled the hair tie out of her hair, slipped her panties off, and stepped in, drawing the curtains behind her. Hot water sprayed over her face and chest, and she stood under the shower for a while, enjoying the heat sliding down her body.

Not for the first time, Tenten wondered if Neji was remotely interested. The thought that he might have been looking sent a shiver down her spine. She licked her lips, shutting the water off and reaching for her shampoo.

"You know, every time I shower, I almost expect the water to stop running, and pink goop to start leaking out of the shower head instead," she began conversationally. "You know, like how the Psycho-Reactive slime in Ghostbusters II collected in a tub and reared over this woman and her kid."

"Your imagination's going overboard," Neji told her, unamused.

She pried the shower curtain open by a little, and grinned at him. "What would you do, Neji, if I was suddenly consumed by sentient slime?"

"It won't happen," he responded.

Tenten scoffed. "Yeah, and right about now is when the creepy soundtrack starts playing, and the next thing you know, a tendril of evil is curling around my ankle and-"

"Tenten."

"Yeah?" She grinned, and turned the shower back on, rinsing thick foam from her hair.

"You shouldn't be making this any worse than it is." There was a touch of solemnity in his voice, and she frowned.

"Why? What's wrong - did you find something you shouldn't in the dead guy's stuff?" Tenten pulled the curtain open again, to inspect Neji for any visible signs of demon possession, or illness.

He gave a reluctant shrug. "Just some extraordinary things."

She raised her eyebrows. "Something so magical that it changed your world view?"

"We'll talk about it later. It's not that important." Neji studied the white paint on her ceiling, his lilac eyes pale and beautiful, like they always were.

Curiosity and excitement found their way into her stomach; Tenten hurried through the rest of her shower, and swept the shower curtain aside, lost in thought. What if the X-Men were alive but evil?

Neji jerked his head away, color surging back into his cheeks.

Tenten gave a start - she'd actually forgotten about Neji's presence while wondering how incredible the things he found must have been, for him to so readily agree to the existence of magic. "Oops," she yelped, and snatched the curtain back to cover herself. "I forgot you were there."

She could imagine him almost rolling his eyes. The next moment, Neji had shoved a towel past the edge of the curtain, and she accepted it with a word of thanks.

Had he liked what he'd seen?

When she was done drying herself, Tenten wrapped her towel around her torso, and stepped out of the tub. "Your turn."

The shower had been a good idea, she had to admit. She felt a lot better without grime and blood on her body, and almost ready to face another murderous wizard. Almost.

Neji jerked a glance over her, then pushed away from the door, looking straight ahead. "Okay."

"Are you going to be okay by yourself in here?" Tenten asked. "Not that I'd be in much position to save your butt either, but at least I'll be able to tell you if you have a giant blob of Psycho-Reactive slime rearing its head behind you."

He cracked a smile at her. "If that comforts you, sure."

She brightened, and settled herself on the toilet to wait for him. After checking it for snakes, of course.

Neji shed his shirt and jeans first (and Tenten watched him from the corner of her eyes, appreciating his lean form), before stepping into the bathtub and drawing the curtain behind himself. She grinned when he reached out and set his boxers on top of his pile of clothes, while remaining discreetly hidden by the shower curtain.

Water began spraying behind the curtain; Tenten got up and leaned over the sink, wringing her hair out. "I still don't think I'll be able to sleep," she sighed. "For all you know, they'll magic Little Whinging away into thin air, or something."

Neji scoffed. "Something like that is bound to happen, if it were fated to."

"You and your ideas about fate," Tenten groused. It was probably the other reason why she didn't think to make any move on him - he probably thought they weren't fated to be together, or something like that.

"It helps one worry less," he pointed out. "Besides, it's more productive to figure out possible solutions, than spend one's mental energies on what-ifs."

"I know that," she told him, frowning. A sigh escaped her throat. "Well, it won't hurt to try and sleep."

"That's more like it," Neji agreed.

It wasn't long before the water was shut off; Tenten heard him wring his hair dry. She pulled a clean towel from the wall cabinet and pushed it past the end of the shower curtain, like he'd done for her.

Minutes later, he drew the curtain open and stepped out of the bathtub, towel wrapped around his waist. Tenten stared briefly at his glistening chest and glanced away, swallowing. Neji raised an eyebrow at her.

"You haven't got dressed yet?" he asked.

"I forgot to bring my sleeping clothes in," she told him. "It's not like you remembered either, and besides, we've seen each other in less."

Oh, she'd thought of him in less, all right.

Neji looked over her towel-clad body and met her eyes; Tenten swallowed dryly, wishing he'd make any kind of move on her. Preferably before they were threatened by yet another wizard and made to scream in agony.

"Are we waiting for something?" he asked mildly.

She exhaled in disappointment, turned to the door. "Nah."

As it was, she was glad that he was whole and alive and next to her.

* * *

_A/N: Was mildly surprised to find that there were a couple of readers who misinterpreted my A/N - I enjoy receiving reviews, but am not motivated by them. My motivation is based solely on presence of plot. That said, I would prefer it if lurkers dropped by to tell me what you liked about the fics and what you did not, instead of thanking me for the fics only when I've left fanfiction lol. (Same reasoning as showing your family love right now, instead of in an eulogy.)_

_In the same vein, also thinking of posting updates twice weekly instead of thrice weekly - transitioning towards published original fiction._

_I have 4 chapters written for this fic so far, roughly 1-2 more to go... In the meantime, I've finished my Singapore oneshot and am working on one set in Japan's red-light district. ;) All are set in the real world, omg. _

_Regarding the HP characters in this fic - I've bent Dolohov to suit my own purposes here (he was still alive at this point in DH, when he followed Harry and co to the eatery after the wedding). Sorry if he was OOC :P Thoughts regarding the chapter? Thank you, as always, for the reviews!_


	3. Magical Things

_Back with a new chapter ;) This is slightly longer. I've written up to the 4th chapter so far._

_Naruto, Harry Potter, and their characters do not belong to me._

* * *

**Hello Wizard World**

**Chapter 3: Magical Things**

The air in the hallway was much lighter and cooler than the thick humidity in the bathroom; Tenten waited outside her bedroom for Neji to get dressed in his sleeping clothes - a T-shirt and shorts - before grabbing a fresh pair of boyshorts and a camisole for herself.

Neji was seated in the whitish trapezoidal glow of the bathroom light when she emerged from the room, the plastic bag of Dolohov's belongings in front of him. She joined him on the carpet, on the other side of the bag, and crossed her legs like he did.

"So," she began, holding out a pair of nitrile gloves for him.

"So." Neji eased his gloves on (his hands were larger than hers, so the gloves were tight around his fingers) and watched while she pulled the bag open hesitantly, her own hands gloved.

"What disturbed you so much that we had to talk about it?" Tenten asked, getting straight to the point.

Dolohov's belongings were stacked neatly within the plastic bag, and she arranged the items on the carpet between them. There was the wooden stick that Dolohov was holding when he died - Tenten suspected that it was his wand - as well as a variety of other things, like a folded stack of papers, a sack of what felt like coins, as well as a shimmery, lightweight mass of dark cloth.

"The photos," Neji said, carefully lifting the stack of papers from the off-white carpet. Tenten watched as he folded them open - the photograph on top was black-and-white, but what struck her most was that the people in the photo were _moving_.

"I've seen that kid before," she gasped, even as she wondered at the impossibility of the moving picture. "He lives with the Dursleys, I think, just down the road. Quiet bunch of people. I don't see him for the larger part of the year."

The photo looked as if it was taken in a court room of some sort - a big, empty space in the middle, with the adolescent (he couldn't be more than twenty) strapped to the chair in the center. He was thin and dark-haired, wearing round glasses, looking from side to side at the rows of people seated around him. Even the audience were moving - some of them were turning their heads to talk to their neighbors, though there was a lack of other camera flashes in the room.

A full-page news article accompanied the photo, Tenten also realized. "_Potter undergoes trial for underage magic_" the headlines screamed.

She glanced at Neji, who frowned, but he did not look any more curious - this was what had rattled him, then. She wasn't surprised. The news article looked legitimate, and even if it didn't, the moving people in the picture was enough to throw one off. It was dated two years ago.

How had she not known that the boy living down the street was a wizard all this time?

A quick scan of the article later, Tenten was left more astounded than she was already. This Harry Potter boy was famous for banishing some evil wizard almost two decades ago. And he was still in school. A magic school. "Apparently student wizards aren't allowed to use magic outside school," she told Neji, who frowned.

"I take it that Dolohov wasn't a student, then," he answered dryly.

Tenten rolled her eyes. "It also says in the article that he used magic here, in Little Whinging! Apparently he claimed to be protecting his cousin from some Dementor attack - but none of this was on the local news."

They remained silent for a while; Tenten wondered just how much of this magic stuff was done and concealed from their eyes. And she wondered what a Dementor was. Probably not something she'd want to get anywhere close to. How was she not aware of all this? Was the article even real?

"Those guys were headed to Potter's place," Neji said slowly.

Tenten stared at him uneasily. "To join him, or to kill him?"

"I don't think we should find out," Neji answered. "In fact, we should be getting out of here."

She pursed her lips. "Where to? He could be referring to another Potter, or another of Potter's places."

"It's likely this one, on Privet Drive. Why else would they target this street?" he countered.

"But why random attacks? Why not just head straight to him?" Tenten frowned. "It doesn't make sense."

Neji exhaled heavily through his nose. "We don't have sufficient information to answer any of those questions, and even if we did, it doesn't concern us."

She pulled a face at him. Neji was right. "But if they've found him, they'd leave, right? As it is, it's more dangerous to leave this house than it is to remain inside."

Dark eyebrows drew together; Neji considered her words. "It is safer to remain inside," he conceded, "Especially with the news reports we've been hearing."

"I'll check the Dursley's again."

Tenten rose to her feet and flicked the bathroom light off. With the flashlight from earlier, she made her way to her bedroom window, and pried the curtain open by a fraction, looking out carefully.

Privet Drive was just as quiet as before - no one was out on the street, and even the houses that were nursing small fires now had only glowing embers within. Across the street, the Dursley's place was just as dark, as if they were hiding in the aftermath of the attack, too. Was Harry Potter still in there? Or was he elsewhere, with the wizards who had attacked?

Tenten returned to the bathroom, and flicked the light back on.

"Well?" Neji watched as she settled back across from him, legs crossed.

"No sign of anyone. I think we're safe." She glanced at the laptop Neji had by his side, set up while she was studying the situation outdoors.

"Apparently the attacks have stopped," Neji told her. He turned the laptop so she saw the bright glow of its screen. "There aren't any new reports of people being killed or tortured."

"Huh." Tenten leaned a shoulder into the wall, and glanced back at the things between them. "I guess it's safe enough to continue pawing through these, then."

"For now," Neji answered, unwilling to give a firm response.

Tenten flipped through the rest of the papers in the stack she'd looked at minutes ago, then set it down in favor of investigating the other things.

"These are so fascinating," she breathed, picking Dolohov's wand up next.

It was a somewhat-long stick, at about twelve inches, and pretty solid. From what she saw, either end could be used to point with - there wasn't any marking or tapering to indicate direction. Tenten waved it around, altering her grip each time, but nothing happened.

"Maybe it only works if we chant a spell concurrently," she suggested.

Neji looked dubiously at her. "And I'm sure you know spells."

"_Adacadabra_," Tenten muttered, swishing the stick around. The air remained still, and she pouted. "Why don't you give it a try, Neji."

He frowned. "I'm not a wizard. It won't work with me."

"So? Give it a try!" She shoved the wand at him.

Begrudgingly, Neji accepted it, and gave it a few short flicks. There was no reaction - Tenten's shoulders drooped.

"Maybe you should hold it differently, or maybe you need to incant a spell," she suggested.

"It's a waste of time and effort," he told her flatly. "Feel free to try it 'til your face turns blue."

He set the stick down between them, and Tenten decided not to press him on the topic. Instead, she picked the little sack up, and traced the pads of her fingers over its coarse surface. Hard, curved ridges pressed into her palm. "Feels like coins to me."

"Coins?" Neji lifted his eyebrows. "It was heavy," he acknowledged.

"Think they might be jinxed? I've heard that Egyptians placed curses on the valuables in their tombs," Tenten mused. There was no one they could test these coins out on, though.

"He struck me as the type to kill someone right away, and not someone who had the patience to trifle with things like jinxes," Neji responded thoughtfully. "Even so, keep your gloves on when you touch them."

She nodded and undid the sack carefully, slowly prying it open by its mouth. As a precaution, Tenten spread an unimportant-looking news article open, and poured the contents of the sack out - slowly at first, then when all it looked to contain was a variety of coins, she emptied the rest of it.

"I don't recognize the coins," Neji remarked. He leaned closer, picking one up with his gloved fingers.

Upon closer inspection, Tenten found that the little bronze coins were "knuts", the silver ones "sickles", and the large gold ones "galleons". Their names were etched in cursive on the flat surface of each coin, and each denomination had a different mythical creature embossed on it. Newts gleamed on the bronze coins, unicorns almost whinnied on the silver, and dragons reared their heads on the gold ones.

"Think we can auction these off?" Tenten suggested, glancing up at Neji. "I'm pretty sure they're rare, if few people knew about the existence of magic."

He leveled a considering look at her. "Think about what they could buy you."

She paused, and her eyes widened. "Oh, wow. I'd never even thought about that."

Neji smirked at her.

"Maybe I'll be able to buy a unicorn with this," Tenten told him, grinning.

"With the amount of money a crook like Dolohov was carrying?" Neji scoffed. "His robes didn't look remotely decent. These probably aren't worth that much."

Tenten let her shoulders droop. There were mostly bronze and silver coins in the sack - just a handful of gold ones. "I guess the galleons are worth the most, huh?"

"Looks like it." Neji picked a sickle up and examined it closely. "Though I'm not sure where we'd start looking for a magical shop. Definitely not when the wizards are attacking people as they were today."

She shuddered, remembering Dolohov's attack. "No, certainly not soon. We'll have to wait until things die down."

Neji dipped his chin, satisfied with her answer. "If you're venturing into the magical world, I'm coming with you."

Tenten grinned at the promise of his presence. "Afraid I'd get into trouble?"

His lips quirked in a tiny smile. "More like I'm afraid you wouldn't return. You'd be far too excited."

She didn't deny that he was right. So she grinned and asked, "Would you be able to stop me?"

Neji sent her a measuring glance, looking her up and down. (Inwardly, she was excited - that he didn't mind looking at her so intently, and that he would want to follow her into the unknown.) "When you're this interested in something, it's hard to stop you," he acknowledged. "It'll be like trying to prevent you from entering a knife store."

Tenten was sure that her eyes were twinkling when she beamed at him. "You know me well."

"I know you like the back of my hand, Tententen." He smiled steadily at her, and she blushed. He hadn't used that nickname in a long time, and that was the second time tonight that he'd called her that.

"Back to our loot," she fumbled, scooping the coins back into their sack. Tenten was relieved that they weren't strange bugs or something vile that would destroy the newspaper articles - information like that was probably rare where they lived, and she wasn't sure if it would be available on the internet. Her head snapped up. "Have you tried searching for information about magic and wizards?"

Neji inclined his head. "There are a lot of stories - it'll take time to sieve through them, to determine if they're real."

She sighed. "I guess it'll be a project for the morning, then."

"For your morning, you mean. I do still have to work tomorrow," he replied, reaching for a shiny pentagon box with the words "Chocolate Frog" on it. It was domed, purple surface speckled with silvery stars.

"You're such a workaholic, it's Saturday tomorrow," Tenten chided playfully. She watched as he turned the palm-sized box around, reading the few descriptions available.

"'_Find out if you've got one of the rare wizard cards inside_,'" Neji read, and flicked his gaze back up at her. "Unlike you, there are cases that require me to be on the job seven days a week."

She stuck her tongue at him. "Well, at least I'm flexible with your awful schedules, unlike so many of your dates."

He smiled at her. "You're different."

"Yeah, I put up with you showing up unannounced at my place at 10pm for dinner," she retorted. "At least you don't mind eating leftovers."

Neji shrugged half-heartedly, and cracked the box open.

At once, a little brown thing hopped out and landed on his thumb. Tenten yelped; Neji merely gave a start.

It was a chocolate frog.

A real, blinking, gulping, twitching one. It gleamed like tempered chocolate, and would have looked delicious, if it weren't for the fact that it was _alive_.

She glanced between the frog and Neji. "Is it a trap?"

A frown wrinkled his forehead. "I don't think so, though we can't be certain."

Slowly, Neji dropped the cardboard box, and lifted his other hand, to capture the strange brown creature.

It slipped through his fingers, and landed on the opposite wall in a powerful leap.

"What?" Neji muttered. He moved towards it warily, reached out, and the frog jumped onto his hand, then his cheek, and to the top of his head, leaving little chocolatey footprints behind.

Tenten bit a smile back. "That's kind of cute, actually."

It seemed that there was no way one could easily capture the frog with one's bare hands, so Tenten took the empty plastic bag they'd used to transport Dolohov's belongings upstairs, waved it around so it puffed with air, and brought the open mouth of the bag down onto Neji's head.

Miraculously, the frog did not escape when it could, and Neji was left with a plastic bag hat crowning his regal head.

Tenten grinned when the frog jumped onto the inside of the plastic bag - she promptly grabbed it off Neji's hair and tied it up, effectively trapping the little creature. She waved it triumphantly at Neji; he cracked a grin.

"So, what wizard card is in the box?" she asked, flicking her gaze to the forgotten cardboard container.

Neji reached over for it, pulling it open fully. Tenten watched as he withdrew a colorful pentagonal card. Like the photo on the newspaper article, the wizard card also had a moving picture, one that neither she nor Neji was surprised by by this point. In the picture, a thin, old man wearing half-moon glasses smiled and winked at them, his silver beard billowing from his chin.

"'_Albus Dumbledore_,'" Neji read.

"Never heard of him," Tenten replied cheerfully.

He looked at her, unamused. Neji scanned the back of the card - a bunch of words in cursive. "Albus Dumbledore apparently defeated the dark wizard Grindelwald, discovered the uses of dragon's blood-"

"There're dragons?" she yelped, eyes wide. Suddenly, the world seemed less safe than it already wasn't.

Neji shrugged. "That's if you believe this."

Tenten pursed her lips, glanced dubiously at the colorful wrapper. "What else does it say?"

"He deals with alchemy, and his hobbies are tenpin bowling and chamber music," Neji said with some finality.

She stared at him. "That... sounds like us. Like normal people."

Ebony eyebrows arched. "What were you expecting?"

"I don't know, something like fighting dragons, or inventing new spells, or something." Tenten faltered. She took the card from Neji and scrutinized it. Like the photo on the newspaper, there was no wiring behind it - the only way this could be possible in her and Neji's world would be if the pictures were on some incredibly flat screen - but the photo seemed to be printed on plain cardboard. "Maybe he doesn't exist."

Neji shrugged again. "For all you know, he's been on this street before."

"No way," Tenten scoffed, frowning. "What would an important person like him be doing here?"

"Visiting the Potter boy, maybe," Neji suggested.

"I assume those thugs who broke in earlier were dark wizards," Tenten mused. "Would've been helpful if someone like the Dumbledore guy came around and stopped them. Maybe even Dumbledore himself."

Neji took the card back and glanced over it. "It says here that he defeated Grindelwald in 1945. Supposing he was twenty then, he'd be seventy-two now. He might be dead."

Tenten made a face. "What about other good wizards? We're too pathetic and non-magical to be helped, huh? Better yet, why aren't the dark wizards targeting them?"

"It could be that the dark wizards have the upper hand now," Neji suggested, glancing at her. "That would explain the conflicts and unexplainable events that have occurred over the past two years or so."

She winced and shivered. "Ugh."

Neji set the card aside. "What shall we do with the frog?"

Tenten considered it for a moment. "Do you think it's edible?"

"I wouldn't want to try it," he responded flatly.

"It could be an explosive," she thought suddenly, and cringed. "With artificial intelligence."

"Would wizards be able to make that?" Neji returned, glancing at the plastic bag. The frog wasn't moving. "Or are we giving their abilities too much credit?"

"No idea," Tenten muttered. "We should capture a wizard alive and ask."

"Too dangerous," Neji countered. "We barely avoided far worse consequences tonight."

"What if it's a time bomb?" she asked next. "We should get rid of it."

"And how would you suggest we do that?" Neji looked expectantly at her.

"Throwing it out into the backyard. I'll pierce it with a knife," she responded.

"I'm not opposed to that," Neji answered.

They made their way to the back of the house, and Tenten cracked a window open, flinging the plastic bag at the approximate middle of her backyard. It had been folded carefully so that it occupied an area the size of the frog, and weighed down with a stone.

Tenten reluctantly bade her knife goodbye, and flung it at the white shape of the plastic bag. Neji tensed next to her, ready to grab her if anything went wrong.

The knife hit with a soft thud, and nothing else happened.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Tenten muttered. At least she didn't lose a knife to that frog.

They waited by the window for five minutes, just to be sure, then retreated back to the bathroom, to examine the last mysterious item.

"Want to try the other chocolate frog?" Tenten asked, waving the only other intact box at Neji.

"No," he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

She grinned and set the box aside.

Everything else that Neji found on Dolohov's person wasn't all that interesting, like pieces of string and paperclips, and half-eaten pies wrapped in foil (Tenten tossed that in a bag that went straight into the bin). The very last item, though, was a dark mass of cloth, that was both shimmery and lightweight.

"I wonder what this is for," Tenten said, shaking the cloth out. It seemed to be a long cloak, with wide sleeves and a deep hood. It didn't smell musty or old, and Neji said that Dolohov kept it in a very accessible pocket - so the chances of it being safe were very high.

To be safe, she slid one arm into the sleeve of the cloak.

It disappeared.

Tenten shrieked, and Neji started.

"Tenten!" he exclaimed worriedly, moving forward.

She yanked her arm out of the cloak, and it was intact once again, opaque and tangible. Neji's eyebrows knit together; he reached for the cloak and took it away from her.

"This is dangerous," he said, looking suspiciously at it. "We shouldn't trust it."

"But what if that's all it does?" Tenten retorted, intrigued since she could feel every bit of her arm, and it didn't feel like she was about to die the next minute.

"We don't know for sure," Neji told her.

"Well, try what I did, then," she told him. "Put your non-dominant arm in. It feels just like a cloak made with tissue."

He watched her dubiously, then found the other sleeve, and slowly slid his arm in. Now that Tenten was expecting it, she wasn't surprised to see his hand, then his forearm, disappear.

"It doesn't seem as dangerous as I thought it would be," Neji acknowledged. He drew his arm out anyway.

"What if something only happens when you become fully invisible?" she asked next.

"I wouldn't want to try that," he answered.

"We should," Tenten returned. "Just in case it proves to be useful."

"According to your imagination, what might be the worst-case scenario?" Neji asked, brows drawn low.

Tenten paused and thought for a bit. "We get transported to another dimension? Or we die?"

Neji glowered at her.

"What if we wear it together," she told him. "Then if something happens, we won't be alone in it."

He considered it for a while. "Fair enough."

They stepped into the bathroom together, stood in front of the mirror, and awkwardly squeezed themselves into the cloak. It was a tight fit - Tenten took the left sleeve, and Neji had the right. She felt his chest press into her arm and back when they pulled the front of the cloak shut.

All Tenten saw in the mirror was her head and Neji's, floating in midair.

"That looks really creepy," she remarked. Yet she could feel her body pressed against his, and it felt nothing like the end of the world.

"Ready?" Neji asked, lifting the hood up over their heads.

She took a deep breath. "Yeah."

The light, shimmery cloth was snug around both their heads - Tenten's nose and chin were visible, so Neji shifted, wrapping an arm around her waist to adjust her position next to him, and the hood concealed them completely.

All she saw was the painted wall behind them.

"Wow," she breathed. "We're still alive."

Neji's cheek was pressed against her temple, and she felt every bit of his body heat through her clothes. It didn't seem as though they were in any immediate danger, and Tenten relaxed.

She grew very aware of Neji's form against hers, and heat pooled in her belly, all over again.

"I guess this is safe to wear," she said breathlessly. "Can we move around in this?"

They attempted to walk together in the cloak - Tenten looked down, and saw their toes when they tried to take too-large steps, though for the most part, the garment was long enough to render them completely invisible.

"This is priceless," she told him. And the experience of being pressed up against her best friend was beyond that.

"It'll be very useful in the event that we have to protect ourselves by hiding," Neji agreed.

"Which could be anytime in the near future," she reminded both of them. "Who's going to take possession of the cloak when you leave here to go to work?"

Although she couldn't see any sign of them in the mirror, Tenten could still glimpse Neji's face right next to hers, as if it was a separate dimension within the cloak, that the gazes of others could not penetrate.

"You keep it," Neji told her. "I want you to be protected when I'm not around."

She frowned at him from the corner of her eye. "What about you? You should be the one taking the cloak."

"Then you shouldn't have asked," Neji told her. "I answered first, so you're keeping the cloak and using it to ensure your safety."

Tenten stomped on his foot. "That's not fair!"

He hissed in pain. "What was that for?"

"Putting me over yourself. Don't do that, Neji Hyuuga," she snapped.

"Then what do you suggest?" He leveled a look at her from his side of the hood.

"You could stay over at my place until this whole mess dies down, and if anything goes wrong, we'll both have access to this," Tenten suggested.

"You're being paranoid," he said tonelessly. "Besides, I have to go to work."

"You don't if you're under a doctor's orders," Tenten retorted. "I'll call Sakura on your behalf."

Neji heaved an exasperated sigh. "I'll contact Uchiha. You don't have to trouble yourself with getting me out of work."

She grinned. "That's more like it."

Neji looked as though he would dearly love to roll his eyes, though he did not.

"With this, we can actually go to the store and back," Tenten said suddenly. "I don't think they'll be able to trace us with this... unlike Sauron and his Ring."

"For all you know, someone's keeping track of this," he answered dryly.

She winced. "Well, let's see what happens, I guess. What's done is done, and we'll defend ourselves if we have to."

"With a magic stick we can't use?" Neji countered.

"You go on and get that stick to work. I'll use my knives," she said, elbowing him lightly in the ribs.

"I'm not a wizard," Neji reminded her. "We should get out of the cloak - it's getting warm in here."

"I'm too hot for you to handle, huh?" Tenten grinned, and bumped her hip against his.

Neji frowned at her.

Without quite thinking, Tenten grabbed the hand he'd anchored on her waist, and dragged it up her side. His fingers caught on her tank top, and his palm slid over bare skin that their movement exposed. Neji caught his breath.

Her heart was beating a little too loudly; Tenten pulled the cloak open and stepped out, hardly watching how she and Neji manifested from thin air in the mirror.

"We should get some sleep," she told him decisively, looking at anywhere but him. "I want to write three chapters tomorrow."

Neji scoffed. "Weren't you just ribbing me for working on Saturdays?"

Tenten shrugged and looked at the pile of things on the floor. "Well, I set my own schedule. I can write whenever I want."

"Workaholic," he muttered beneath his breath. She glowered at him.

"Like you aren't," Tenten muttered back.

They stashed Dolohov's belongings in new bags, set them back in the spare room, and returned to Tenten's bedroom, after making sure that the neighborhood was, indeed, quiet and at peace for the night.

Tenten locked her bedroom door; Neji raised an eyebrow, visible under the light of the bedside lamp.

"Are you locking yourself in with me? I may or may not infect you with the super-potent workaholic bug," he informed her, face completely straight.

She rolled her eyes. "Well, I'll infect you with the nymphomaniac bug if you do."

"Is that a threat, Tententen?" Neji asked softly as he settled into the side of her bed that was closer to the door.

"Yes, it is," she told him. "Do you want to see how contagious my bug is?"

With the banter they had going back and forth, it was easy to ignore the fact that she was to be sharing a bed with one of the Most Eligible Asian Bachelors in London. Or perhaps the whole of England. Who was also her best friend. With the way his presence made her heart quiver with excitement, he may as well be the Most Eligible Bachelor in the Universe. Period.

Tenten lifted the sheets and planted her bottom on the mattress on her side of the bed, before swinging her legs up. Neji checked his phone briefly for messages, then lay down, and watched her expectantly.

There were still some inches between their bodies when they lay side by side, heads centered on their pillows - though, of course, Tenten would much rather be pressed up next to him.

Neji left the bedside lamp on and turned to her, so his face was partially cast in shadow. "So," he began, "Your nymphomaniac bug. I'm interested in how you propagate it."

Tenten lifted her eyebrows in surprise. "You are?"

It wasn't like she was actually a nymphomaniac, but she wrote enough about it in her books to be counted as one. Neji nodded solemnly.

"Well, I stick my tongue in your ear," she told him, which was the grossest treatment she could think of on the spur of the moment.

His brow crinkled. "That doesn't sound remotely sexy."

"Oh?" Tenten challenged, and grinned. "Then maybe you'd find it sexy when I do it to you."

He looked doubtfully at her, and she turned onto her side, facing him with her body.

"So," she started. "Are you game enough to subject yourself to my bug propagation?"

"It sounds like you're proposing an invasion of my body," Neji muttered, pale eyes fixed on hers.

Tenten quirked a brow. "You don't want to go there, Mister. I can come up with at least three ways to make that logically possible."

And another three to make it incredibly sexy.

He sighed. "You and your science fiction."

"Well?" She grinned. "Bug propagation or no?"

He looked at her in long-suffering silence. "You may as well do it quickly, and we'll not speak a word of this again."

Tenten felt her lips twitch. She propped herself up on her elbows, leaned in close. (Neji's damp hair smelled like her shampoo, and his skin was smooth and soft.) Carefully, she tucked his long black locks behind his ear, and parted her lips, slowly lowering the tip of her tongue into the grooves of his ear.

Neji didn't pull away, though he frowned, and shifted a little when she finally licked the entrance to his ear canal.

"Well?" she asked, drawing back to gauge his response.

His brows were still drawn, and he looked to be at a loss for words. "It's... a unique experience."

Tenten smiled. "Did it work? Are you feeling the least bit amorous?"

Nej's pale eyes didn't leave hers for long moments. "No," he said finally, "You'd have to try harder to infect me with that bug of yours."

Her eyebrows rose all the way up her forehead. "Really? And you'd subject yourself to that?"

He seemed to debate with himself for a bit, before finally yielding, "Yes."

"You don't know what you're getting into," she told him, and returned her lips to his ear.

Tenten wet her tongue. This time, she was going to try her darnedest to get a reaction out of him.

She grasped his arm lightly and breathed over his ear, then took his earlobe between her lips, nipping gently on him. Neji drew a quick breath; she smiled, and switched to dragging her teeth over his skin. From the corner of her eye, she saw his pale eyes widen, felt his heart quicken beneath her palm, and drew the tip of her tongue up the helix of his ear.

It was like a very adult kiss, but with his ear, slowly, teasingly, sliding into the groves and following the ridges, until she reached the hollow next to his ear canal, and licked over that opening.

Neji was marginally less composed when she pulled away - his gaze jerked to hers, and he was breathing a little faster than before. Whether that had to do with her kiss, Tenten wasn't sure.

"How was it?" she asked with a grin. "Are you infected by my nymphomaniac bug now?"

He narrowed his eyes, and she found herself pinned to the mattress in the next moment.

Neji's lips were on her ear, and he was doing the exact same thing to her - suckling on her earlobe, and dipping his tongue into her ear in a way that made her think this wasn't the first time he'd done something like that.

His tongue was deft, warm and moist, sliding along the shell of her ear and probing inside, in a manner so intimate that heat arrowed straight between her legs and moisture leaked from her flesh.

A gasp flew from her lips, followed by a soft moan, and Neji broke the kiss, leaving her breathing unevenly, all too aware of the way his palm was on her midriff and how her nipples were straining at her tank top.

"We should sleep," she croaked, turning away from him the moment he released her.

Sleep was the last thing on her mind, but Neji couldn't know how much she wanted to be beneath him right now, with nothing separating their skins.

"You infected me with the nymphomaniac bug," he commented mildly behind her, straightening the sheets over them. The lamp flicked off. "I should return the favor with my workaholic bug."

Despite how flustered she was feeling, Tenten couldn't help but smile. "Really?"

"Tomorrow," Neji told her quietly. "I'll get you back for it."

Was he really infected by her bug? Tenten wondered what the implications of that statement were, and was tempted to ask, when she felt Neji slip a warm arm around her waist.

"I'm not dating anyone," he murmured into her neck, his chest pressing lightly into her back, and her breathing hitched. "You don't mind, do you?"

"No," she answered, her heart hammering against her ribs. He kept his hips and legs away from hers, but she didn't mind, didn't think to muse upon it, because this was already more than she could hope for.

Except, of course, it would help if her pulse wasn't thudding insistently in her crotch.

_First world problems_, Tenten told herself, and smiled. They'd deal with all bug and wizard problems tomorrow.

* * *

_A/N: I don't know how dealing with wizards turned into dealing with bug problems LOL._

_For those who aren't into the Potter fandom, I hope this chapter wasn't too much of a drag. ;) Thank you all for taking the time to leave your thoughts, as always!_


	4. I Want A Unicorn

_Back with another chapter... I can safely say that this fic is the singular most tedious one I've written - I keep losing motivation to write it (and that's saying something, because I've never really lost motivation writing any of my other NejiTen fics (amounting to 400k words)). So... be grateful that I'm intending to see it to its end._

_Naruto, Harry Potter, and their characters do not belong to me._

* * *

**Hello Wizard World**

**Chapter 4: I Want A Unicorn**

_Screech!_

Tenten sat bolt upright in bed, glancing around the dim bedroom. That had sounded like a car rounding a corner at full speed, tires skidding on the road. She'd opened the window by a crack last night, so that audible threats could be heard. What had caused that screech?

It was warm on her left - Neji was curled up with her in bed, she realized belatedly, the incidents from the previous night returning to her mind. A light blush rose to her cheeks, that darkened in intensity when she became very aware of something stiff making an indent in her hip.

Tenten scrambled out of bed before her thoughts could spiral out of control, and hurried to her cupboard, where she fumbled about in the dimness for a pair of binoculars.

"What're you doing?" Neji mumbled, stirring under the sheets. He rolled over to look at her alarm clock. "It's 5.50am."

"Checking out that screech," she answered, wide awake now. And definitely not thinking about his body. "Did you hear it?"

"No." With a yawn, he stretched his arms and sat up in bed, watching as she padded over to the windows, carefully pushing the curtains aside to investigate the goings-on on the street outside.

(From the corner of her eye, Tenten saw Neji discreetly rearranging the sheets around his waist.)

The sky was a shade of royal blue, turning pale in the east. Thin clouds streaked high across the heavens, promising a sunny morning. Tenten scanned Privet Drive with a critical eye. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, with the exception of the two burned homes. There weren't even policemen around - they were probably stretched thin from last night. Speaking of which, they had to call the police about the dead man in her backyard...

And the Dursleys' car was missing. She was pretty sure she'd seen it around last night - they had been packing it, and unpacking, for the past four weeks. Did it have anything to do with Harry Potter being a wizard?

There was a sudden, deafening roar, and Tenten started in surprise, sweeping her gaze across the horizon. Was there an aerial attack coming?

It was to her shock when a gigantic motorbike flew right over her roof, headed in the direction of Four Privet Drive. A sidecar was attached, and as it drew away, Tenten saw the hugest man riding upon it, helmet on his head. He couldn't have been human - he was probably twice her height, at least!

"Fuck," she swore, unable to take her eyes off the sight. "Neji, you have to see this. Now."

Neji was fumbling out of bed, and took a while to reach her side. The humongous flying vehicle was already descending behind the tiled roof of Potter's house by the time he caught sight of it.

"What is that-" he began, but was interrupted when four broomsticks swooped in from different directions, each carrying two passengers.

Two other shapes flew in from the horizon - Tenten drew her disbelieving eyes away from the broomsticks and looked through her binoculars, gasping at what she saw.

They were skeletal horses with reptilian heads and huge, bat-like wings that hardly flapped - yet they flew at incredible speeds, and approached more swiftly than those on the brooms had done. Two people rode on each of their backs, seemingly at ease with travelling on such dreadful creatures.

She shoved the binoculars at Neji and pointed at the horses; his mouth fell open when he saw them up close.

"What are those things?" he muttered to her, watching them until they disappeared behind the roof of Four Privet Drive.

"Not a clue," Tenten answered. But she filed away the images of those horses in her mind - they'd be useful additions to future stories. "You can't deny that magic doesn't exist now, though."

Neji tightened his jaw. "I guess not."

When they were certain that there were no more additions to the party, Tenten pulled a chair over, sitting by the window to keep watch, while Neji visited the bathroom, checking his phone for messages along the way.

Tenten sneaked a peek at his hips when he returned - he wasn't tenting his shorts any longer - and felt a twinge of disappointment. She did need to empty her bladder, however, and made Neji stand guard by the window for the duration of her absence.

"They might not be leaving all that soon," he protested, flicking his eyes between her, his phone, and the house down the street. Neji sat down in the chair she'd vacated anyway.

"I won't be long. Give a shout if you see anything, I'll leave the door ajar," she told him.

"Fine," he conceded.

It didn't take long for her to return to his side - scarcely five minutes had passed since the arrival of the wizards.

"I'm back," Tenten announced. "You can return to being a workaholic now."

Neji gave her a flat look. "At least working is a better expenditure of time than spying on one's neighbors."

"And how often do you see a flying horse, huh?" she retorted, promptly planting her bottom in his lap. A strangled sound emerged from his throat; she took the binoculars from the window sill, and examined the Dursleys' house again. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary.

"What purpose does it serve to keep me anchored to this chair?" he muttered behind her.

Tenten licked her lips, distracted by his heat and hard thighs. "You're an extra pair of eyes. Those guys have to leave sooner or later."

"You can sit elsewhere." Neji set his phone down; she felt him lean away from her.

"Is my nymphomaniac bug getting to you?" she teased, remembering their conversation from the night before. He'd known precisely how to lick her ear, and it wasn't fair that he could draw such a reaction from her.

So Tenten wriggled her hips, stretched her arms, and arched her back a little. Behind, Neji drew a sharp inhalation.

She looked back at him coquettishly and wished he'd make the first move.

He frowned at her.

There was a deafening roar again, and both their gazes snapped back to Four Privet Drive.

As one, brooms, horses and the gigantic bike flew up in the air. Tenten shoved the binoculars back against her eyes and tried to focus on the rapidly-rising group - they had to be three hundred meters in the air now-

And all of a sudden, a ring of about thirty people surrounded them, dressed in billowing, hooded cloaks, like the one Dolohov was wearing.

"I think those are the bad guys," Tenten whispered, a lump of dread settling in her gut.

Upon closer look, there was not just one Harry Potter, but seven of them, each one of them on either a broomstick, horse, or motorbike.

The next thing she knew, there were flashes of green light all throughout the circle; the giant on the motorbike did a barrel roll, and Tenten barely glimpsed things falling out of the sidecar - what appeared to be a broom, a bag, and a cage.

The Harry Potter in the sidecar made a grab for his bag and cage; the broomstick plummeted back towards the Earth.

"He lost a broom!" Tenten gasped.

Next to her, Neji squinted. "Where? They're too high for me to see clearly."

"Just keep an eye out for it, it'll land soon," she told him, focusing on the fray high in the air. "I hope."

Two pairs of people on brooms broke away from the fray soon after, and the circle of hooded figures split to follow them. There were flashes of light flying both ways - green from the hooded figures, and a variety from those fleeing. Some of the hooded figures were struck and fell off their brooms.

One of the Harry Potters on a broom disappeared - Tenten had a moment to wonder where he went - when she saw a ghost-like figure floating - flying - towards the stocky man left on the broom.

It gave her the creeps, this ghost-like creature - he was bald, bone-white, and from what she saw of his face, he had no nose, only what seemed to be vertical slits, and scarlet eyes. He was holding a wand, and the next thing Tenten knew, he'd shot a green streak of light at the stocky man on the broom, hitting him right in the face.

It seemed as if the man was frozen in time - he was spread-eagle and blasted off his broom, and he was falling, falling...

The rest of the horses and people on brooms had scattered by then; Tenten followed those she could see, until they flew out of her sight.

She sunk against Neji, pale and shaking.

"What did you see?" he asked quietly into her hair. He took the binoculars from her hands, set it aside, and pulled her snug against his chest.

Tenten blinked and swallowed. It was far more real than watching it on the news. "A... a lot of things."

Slowly, she got up and turned to face Neji, settling back on his lap. The sight of his face comforted her somewhat - he looked nothing like that snake-man, who had red eyes and no nose.

Tenten swallowed and buried her face in Neji's shoulder, clinging onto him. "I- I saw this ghost- this man. He was awful."

In starts and stops, she described the scene to Neji. When she was done, he hugged her close, and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

"Perhaps we shouldn't have witnessed that," he told her.

"He's scary," Tenten whispered, trembling a little. "I think he's going to give me nightmares. I can't believe something like that exists."

Neji was quiet for a while. "I don't think many people have the capability to fend him off, not even wizards."

"No," she agreed, and wrapped her arms around him.

He stroked her back for long moments, until she regained some semblance of calm and remembered the fallen men.

"Did you see where they fell?" Tenten asked eventually. "They couldn't have survived falling from that height."

"I saw four. Two fell east of here, one to the north, and one to the west," he answered. "You aren't thinking-"

"Let's go," Tenten whispered. "It gives us something to do."

"No." Neji's arms fell away; he found her shoulders and pulled her off his chest, so he could look her in the eye. "It's too dangerous out there, Tenten."

She knew that much. But with the bad guys pursuing the good ones, who would be targeting normal people like them on the ground?

She frowned back at him. "They're out chasing those guys. I want to see what else wizards have in their pockets. I want a unicorn."

He stared at her, flabbergasted. "A unicorn, Tenten? We're in the middle of a state of emergency!"

"We have a cloak that makes us invisible," she answered. "If we use that, we'll have higher chances of escaping alive."

"I don't want to take any chances," he told her, gripped both her arms. Pale lilac eyes bore into hers. "I want to see you safe."

"Then either you come with me, or you don't," she replied. "This is the best chance we have at obtaining wizard money."

"Valuing money over your life?" Neji's forehead furrowed deeply. "I won't-"

She leaned in and kissed him briefly on the lips.

Neji's eyes widened; he stared mutely at her.

"I'm going," she told him, suddenly embarrassed. Without another word, she stood up and headed for the door. "You can come if you want."

Her bedroom was silent as she passed through the doorway and headed for the guest bedroom, where the bags of Dolohov's things were stored. Tenten pulled the invisibility cloak out, and as a precaution, took the wand with her.

Neji was still in her bedroom when she returned. He watched her; she grabbed a pair of jeans from her cupboard and pulled them on.

Tenten sent him a nervous glance - did the kiss change anything between them? - and took a pair of socks, before hurrying out of the room. He still had not moved from the chair.

Soon after, she heard his footsteps on the wooden floors, and paused at the foot of the stairs, wearing her shoes and socks.

Neji appeared at the top of the stairs a minute later, dressed in jeans and a shirt. A sturdy backpack was slung over his shoulder, and his hair was pulled back in a low ponytail.

Tenten swallowed dryly when their gazes met. Her heart pounded; he made his way down the stairs.

"You've decided to come along?" she asked hopefully.

He slanted an indecipherable look at her. "I need to make sure that you get home safe."

Relief flooded her stomach, and Tenten beamed at him. "Thanks, Neji."

He moved past her, into the kitchen, and pulled a mug from the cabinet. Tenten followed him in, retrieving a couple of currant cakes from the fridge while he dropped a pinch of tea leaves into the mug. The wall separating the kitchen and living room was still splintered and a little charred at the edges, and Tenten winced every time she looked at it.

"Here." She handed Neji a pastry; a slight look of distaste crossed his features. "Eat it. It's your sugar boost for the day."

They washed down the sugary pastries with a shared cup of green tea, and Tenten set the traps by the back door, after they'd stepped out together in the invisibility cloak.

Now that Neji didn't seem as stunned, or wasn't distancing himself because of the kiss, Tenten decided to brush it off as inconsequential. "About that kiss - you know that was a joke, right?" she said lightly.

He slanted a look at her from beneath the hood, arm wrapped around her waist - it was the only way they'd both fit into the cloak. "And you know that I'm following purely for the sake of keeping an eye out for you."

"Thanks, Neji. You know I can't live without you," she grinned. "Where should we head first?"

"We'll aim for the two in the east," he replied quietly after a brief moment. "I don't think they're even fifty meters from here."

"Right. Lead the way, please."

They made their way as quickly as they could beneath the cloak, staying close to bushes and hedges so that their dark shoes had a chance of being hidden against the leafy background.

Above, the skies were clear, and Tenten shivered when they passed the still-intact Four Privet Drive.

"We should drop by this place," she whispered to Neji, who was looking left and right for the shortest path they could take. "I'm fairly certain that neither the Dursleys nor Harry Potter will be back."

He slanted an exasperated look at her. "Let's get through this alive first, Tenten. If we do, I'll listen to any proposals you might have."

"Even marriage proposals, huh?" she quipped, to keep the tension at bay.

Neji coughed lightly. "I'm not worthy of marrying."

This, she didn't know. Tenten felt her eyebrows crawl up her forehead. "Really? Why? You're the most popular bachelor-"

"Shh," Neji hissed suddenly, when a door opened, and an old lady tottered out, looking warily around the street. "I doubt this prevents us from being heard."

They crept silently along the rest of the street, scanning their surroundings for any signs of dead bodies.

Fifty meters was still a large radius, and Tenten's heart gave an excited leap when Neji muttered, "There!"

Their first was a lucky find - the wizard had landed on the bonnet of a car, heavily denting it, and there was a pool of blood on the driveway below the car.

"I can't believe no one's spotted him yet," Tenten whispered, as Neji's hand tightened around her waist, and they hurried over to the corpse.

"Shh," Neji told her.

The man had to be dead, from the sheer amount of blood that he had lost. That, and the bloody, mutilated face that his hood had slipped off partially to reveal. He was dressed in the same dark robes that Dolohov had been wearing; one of the bad wizards who had formed the ambush, no doubt. The sun was just barely rising at this point - perhaps that was why no one dared emerge from their houses yet.

They avoided the pool of blood, and Tenten leaned over the side of the car, reaching over to search for the man's pockets.

"Support me," she told Neji, leaning forward further to pat the man down. Neji obliged; he wrapped his arms around her waist and held her while she reached into the wizard's pockets, finding a loose handful of coins. "Damn it!"

"We don't have time to be picky," Neji chided. He slipped the backpack off his shoulder and shoved it towards her; Tenten fitted both her arms through the cloak sleeve and unzipped one of the smaller pockets, trying to pile her coins into the bag as quietly as possible.

There wasn't much in this wizard's pockets - Tenten made sure to empty them out completely, though she only took the coins, and stuffed the worthless items - broken quills, food, a locket - back in.

"Thank you for the contribution," she muttered, giving a short bow as she zipped the backpack up.

Neji scoffed, slung the backpack over his shoulder after she handed it back to him.

"What, didn't your family teach you to pay respects to the dead?" she challenged, as they stepped away carefully from the car and began their search for the next body.

"They didn't teach me to rob the dead, and then say thank you," he told her archly.

Tenten made a face at him. "Well, what do you propose?"

"If you're going to pat them down and pillage their belongings, at least apologize in advance," Neji answered with a straight face.

She giggled. "Sure, Mr Proper. They don't need this money in their afterlife, anyway."

"They may become ghosts and haunt you," Neji told her.

The prospect had not occurred to her, and Tenten froze up, glancing around herself. "I don't see any," she said warily.

"Well, keep an eye out for them," he muttered.

There was a terrified scream suddenly; they exchanged a look beneath the hood of the invisibility cloak, and Neji pulled her along in the direction of that sound.

On the adjacent street, a middle-aged woman was staring at a body in her front yard. Tenten looked closely, and saw that this dead wizard had crashed into the edge of the roof, smashing some tiles and falling into a crumpled heap beneath one of the ground floor windows. The lady, probably the owner of the house, was standing on her doorstep in fright, her eyes wide, face pallid.

Tenten pursed her lips; surely there would be people watching this scene from their windows, even if they didn't dare emerge onto the street. "What should we do?" she asked Neji.

"Head on over. We don't know if the wizards are returning for their dead," he said, glancing towards the sky. "Hurry."

As one, they moved forward, stepping on the far edge of the lawn.

The woman must've seen the grass flattening beneath their feet, because she raised her arm and trembled. "F-Footprints!"

Tenten winced. She didn't know anything about the neighbors who weren't living on her street, and felt bad scaring the woman like this. But she couldn't reveal herself, either - that would just blow their covers.

So she crouched down next to the body with Neji, and gave a somewhat realistic groan, grabbing the dead wizard's arm and shifting it slightly.

The woman shrieked and retreated into her house, slamming the door behind her.

"Nice," Neji murmured in appreciation.

"When you invent stories like I do, you get creative," she explained.

He smiled at her.

Tenten beamed and got to work- though not before remembering to apologize to the deceased. She gave a quick, shallow bow, and muttered, "Departed soul, please forgive us for lightening your worldly possessions."

It didn't sound quite right, but she pushed her hand into this wizard's pockets, drawing a quick breath when she found a sack of coins.

"It's a heavy one," she hissed at Neji, who took it from her and tucked it into his backpack. A faint thrill of exhilaration flared in her middle - she couldn't wait to get home and count their gains.

On impulse, Tenten leaned in and pressed a kiss to Neji's cheek. "Thank you."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "What for?"

"For agreeing to come along with me. You're the best, Neji."

He answered with a light shrug. When Tenten found little else of value in the second wizard's pockets, they stood up, and she gave him a quick bow once again.

"Thank you, oh generous soul," she told the dead man.

Neji released a slow breath. "It's not like he was around to grant you permission to raid his belongings," he muttered.

"Which just goes to show that he doesn't need it," Tenten pointed out.

"You don't need a unicorn, either," he returned.

She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Let's get to the others," Neji muttered, applying a light pressure on her waist to catch her attention.

"Okay." Tenten kept her eyes peeled for any signs of fallen wizards, or abnormal things that might have fallen during the fight, but didn't see any. "What happened to the broom? Did you see where that went?"

"No," Neji answered, and Tenten's shoulders drooped a little. She'd been hoping to get her hands on a flying broomstick. "It fell somewhere out of sight."

"Damn it," Tenten muttered.

They headed northwest, towards the third body. The sun was climbing higher in the sky, now, and people were beginning to leave their homes. On occasion, a car or two passed them, and Tenten wondered if someone had got to the other bodies before they could.

It wasn't a nice thought, so she tugged on Neji's hand to get him to hurry.

Minutes later, the sound of a conversation reached their ears.

"This is bollocks, I'm telling you - there's no way this magic rubbish is true-"

"But you haven't seen the news, have you? People were being randomly murdered all through yesterday-"

"Which is stupid. I turned the news on today, and there's been nothing newsworthy!"

"So how do you explain this guy in the fancy cloak?"

"Looks like a rotten git if I ever saw one."

At that, Tenten glanced at Neji - he'd clearly heard the conversation too.

They strode over to the two men deep in conversation. A third wizard had fallen through the hedge between them, and was lying on the ground in a bloody mess.

"They won't be chased away by attempts to scare them," Neji warned her in a low tone.

Tenten had figured as much, and she frowned, wondering how they could get to the wizard, who was dressed in the same black cloak as the previous two, before the men started to take his things apart. Before they got their hands on whatever money the dead man had.

"I'm glad he didn't fall on my '59 Mini - that one's a right antique," Car Guy was saying. He was standing further away from them.

"Maybe if we just sneaked right up and raided his pocket," Tenten whispered.

"Too dangerous," Neji whispered back.

"Come on, they won't notice if we do it quick," she told him, and dragged him with her.

Neji followed her reluctantly, and Tenten eased close to the Other Guy, who stood at the head of the dead wizard. This wizard still held his wand, and Tenten brought the sleeve of her cloak next to it. When she was sure that neither man was looking at the wizard, she enveloped his wand with her sleeve, rendering it invisible, and tugged it out of his lifeless hand.

"We're eternally grateful for your contributions," she whispered, handing the stick to Neji.

"Did you hear that?" Car Guy said with a frown.

"No, what did you hear?" Other Guy looked around quizzically.

Tenten took this time to slowly ease her hand into the wizard's pockets, and her heart began thumping when she found the largest sack of coins she'd come across so far.

"Hey, wasn't this guy holding a stick just moments ago?" Other Guy commented, crouching down just inches away from Tenten.

She winced, one hand in the wizard's robes. Neji grimaced.

Tenten leaned away, and the hood eased away from Neji's face.

Car Guy looked up suddenly from across the hedge, at their faces. He paled. "Is that a nose-"

Neji shoved himself up against Tenten and jerked the hood back over their faces. Car Guy was still staring at them, and Tenten wondered if he could see through the cloak, if the cloak had stopped working-

"What did you see?" Other Guy turned, and looked straight at Tenten.

She didn't dare move. Her heart felt like it was going to slam right out of her chest.

Car Guy frowned. "I thought I saw a nose for a moment there... But it's gone now."

"You're seeing things," Other Guy said. "I told you this magic stuff is bollocks."

Tenten held her breath and very, very slowly eased the sack out of the wizard's clothes. It was heavy, but it didn't make a sound, thankfully.

She almost had the entire sack out of the wizard's pocket when Car Guy glanced down, and saw the bulge in the wizard's pocket move, courtesy of Tenten. "It just moved!" he exclaimed.

Tenten stilled.

"What just moved?" Other Guy snapped.

"This... cloak thing. It moved." Car Guy gulped.

"Must be an animal," Other Guy told him. "Here, I'll show you."

He reached for the pocket, and Tenten panicked. Her heart was beating so loud that she was surprised neither man had heard it.

With a final yank, she pulled the rest of the sack out and tucked it into her sleeve, though not before Car Guy's eyes widened.

"I saw that!" he gasped, pointing where the corner of the coin sack had been momentarily visible.

Neji hauled Tenten to her feet and dragged her away. The coins in the backpack jangled, and both men looked immediately in their direction.

"Are those... shoes?" one of them said.

"They're moving by themselves! Blimey!"

The men made to follow them, and Neji led Tenten to a spot behind another hedge belonging to the next house. He jerked the hem of the cloak over their feet a scarce moment before both men rounded the trimmed shrub, and Tenten watched them with wide eyes, wondering what she should do next.

Neji eased them away slowly, pressed tight against her so their feet did not show. Car Guy and Other Guy both looked around them - for painful moments, Tenten thought they'd see her and Neji in their cloak - but they never did.

They broke into a run when they were across the street and in the shadows, and Tenten heaved a huge sigh of relief.

"Thanks, Neji," she panted, as they sprinted back towards her home.

"Thank me when we get back," he muttered, finally slowing to a stop so she could catch her breath. He took the sack from her, and put it away in his backpack. "I only hope that this isn't more trouble than it's worth."

"Me too," she agreed.

There was only a last body to locate. They slowed to a walk this time, and Tenten leaned into Neji - they were getting used to moving around together in a very tiny space, and the fact that she was doing it with Neji helped a great deal. He tightened his arm around her.

They'd barely made it to Wisteria Walk when Tenten spotted a slew of fallen leaves and broken branches on the sidewalk. She looked up at the same time Neji did-

And shrieked.

Hanging on the tree branch above them, his body limp, was the gnarled man that the snake-ghost had blasted in the face. He was motionless; his face looked as if it were roughly carved from wood, and one of his eye sockets was empty. He had a wooden peg for a leg, Tenten realized, and a large chunk of his nose was missing.

"That was a good guy," she mumbled, feeling very sorry for him. The image of the snake man, with scarlet eyes and no nose, came to mind again, and she shivered against Neji. "We should pull him down or something."

"Shouldn't we leave him?" Neji asked instead.

Tenten winced. "It doesn't seem right to leave him like that. I don't know if anyone will come back for him."

"I don't suppose you want him buried in your backyard," Neji muttered.

She shook her head vehemently. "No, I don't know if he'll be hunted down by the bad guys."

"So we shouldn't even be standing in his presence," he deduced.

"But we shouldn't leave him, either!" she protested.

Neji sent her a sour glance. "We could pull him down from the tree, and then we'll decide."

"Sounds good to me," she agreed.

They moved towards the house on the same piece of property; there happened to be a ladder leaning just to the side. It was a bit of a struggle to position the ladder beneath the tree, and Neji stepped out of the invisibility cloak, scaling the ladder with ease. Tenten looked around them nervously, afraid that the black-cloaked wizards from before would show up again.

Neji had shifted most of the gnarled man's body off the branch, and Tenten watched nervously as he climbed down the ladder, positioning himself beneath the body.

"Push him over," he told Tenten. "I'll catch him."

"Right." Tenten scrambled up the ladder, almost tripping on the cloak, and grabbed a cold, muscled arm. The corpse wasn't too high up above Neji, which was a relief. "Get ready, I'm going to push him over now."

"I'm ready," he told her.

With a determined shove, Tenten heaved the heavy body off the branch; Neji caught him with a grunt, staggering beneath the man's weight.

"What are you doing in my front yard?" came a screech behind them.

Tenten and Neji turned, and in the doorway of the house before them, an old lady wearing a strange dress, a hairnet, and tartan carpet slippers stood glaring at them. Or rather, she was glaring at just Neji, since Tenten was still hidden beneath the invisibility cloak.

"This man was hanging from your tree," Neji said evenly. "He's dead."

At that, the woman's eyes swiveled from Neji to the gnarled man in his arms, and she gasped and paled, clutching at the doorway to keep from collapsing.

"Is- Is that- Mad Eye? He's dead?" she gasped in horror.

Neji sent a look at Tenten - this woman knew the dead wizard? - and nodded at her. Tenten pulled her invisibility cloak off and climbed down the ladder, though the lady at the door hardly batted an eyelid at that.

"Bring him in," she said weakly, holding the door open for them.

Tenten shrugged, and stepped over to help Neji with the dead man's legs. Perhaps they would be able to scavenge more information about the wizard world from this.

* * *

_A/N: Back to writing.. ugh. There should be just 2-3 more chapters, and then this will be over (yay!) The fact that I'm even complaining about this fic tells you how bad the lack of motivation is lol. _

_Anyway, I have been reading "_Delenda Est_" by _Lord Silvere_ \- in which Harry Potter meets a younger, saner Bellatrix Black/Lestrange. Very exciting/suspenseful, well-explained, and very incredible world-building. (You'll find it on my favorites list.) _

_Signing off for now.. leave a review/your thoughts/etc. Would be nice to receive some appreciation lol - I've written 20k words (Edge of Heaven plus Nights in the Sleepless Town) while dragging my feet on this.. not my usual MO. Damn wizard fic. :/_


	5. Mrs Arabella Figg

_Finally finished writing this fic, much to my relief. This chapter is slightly more HP-heavy, but the next chapter is essentially just NejiTen. ;) 6 chapters plus epilogue in total._

_Naruto, Harry Potter, and their characters do not belong to me._

* * *

**Hello Wizard World**

**Chapter 5: Mrs Arabella Figg**

The interior of the brick house was dim and smelled strongly of cats and cabbage - neither of which particularly appealed to Tenten. She stood close to Neji and slipped her fingers into his hand. It gave her no small amount of relief to know that Neji was in this with her, for better or for worse.

The dead man had been set in the middle of the living room, and the strange old woman had locked the door, peering through the curtains nervously before padding over in her tartan carpet slippers.

"How are you so sure that you can trust us?" Tenten asked the woman with a frown.

On closer inspection, the house was teeming with cats - there were at least four on the couch, and some kittens in a basket. Glowing eyes shone at them from dark corners, reflecting lamplight from the middle of the room. One of them brushed by Tenten's calves, and sat back on its haunches, washing its paws without taking its eyes off them.

"Mr Tibbles thinks you can be trusted," the lady replied distractedly - her eyes kept straying to the dead man - Mad Eye? - on her living room floor. "But I can't believe Mad Eye's dead," she moaned, trembling. "How did this happen?"

"He was murdered," Tenten answered with a wince.

"Who are you?" Neji added.

"Murdered?" the strange woman echoed in a high-pitched voice, and trembled, staring at Tenten. Neji's question went unanswered. "Who? How did you know this?"

"The snake-man shot green light at him," Tenten said, glancing at the grandfather clock in the living room. "Forty-five minutes ago. Weren't you aware of this?"

"No," the lady cried, wringing her hands. She sank into one of the couches. Stared between Neji and Tenten. "What snake-man? Who are you? How did you know all this?"

Tenten frowned. They'd asked for names first. "I'm Tenten, and this is Neji. I live across the street from Harry Potter. Who are you?"

"I'm Mrs Arabella Figg," the woman groaned, and swayed in her seat. It was odd that she didn't bat an eyelid at the mention of someone famous in the wizarding world, like Harry Potter. "I can't believe Mad Eye's dead... What's he even doing in Little Whinging?"

"Who is he?" Neji asked. He scanned the living room, and tightened his hand around Tenten's.

"He's the most famous auror of all time," Arabella Figg said miserably. "Don't you know?"

Mad Eye's death had to be something very important for her to react like that, Tenten thought. "We aren't... we aren't one of you," she said finally, and hoped that Arabella Figg would not turn on them with this information. "We aren't wizards."

Arabella's eyes grew wide, and she covered her face with her hands, shaking her head. "This is a mess," she moaned. "Ever since Dumbledore died..."

It was the wizard whose name was on the Chocolate Frog card, Tenten recalled. It figured that he was dead.

"What's an auror?" she asked, curious. She supposed that she should feel more upset about Mad Eye's death, but she didn't know him as well as Arabella Figg apparently did.

"Highly-skilled magical law enforcers," Arabella mumbled. She pulled her hands away from her face - there were no tears, but Tenten suspected that the woman was still in shock.

"We should probably go," Neji said, tugging at Tenten's hand. She glanced at him; he shook his head by a fraction.

"Don't!" Arabella cried, distraught. "I can't- I don't know what to do with Mad Eye - I should probably send an owl..."

Tenten turned to stare at her. For all their prowess with magic, it sure didn't seem efficient to send snail mail around through birds, especially for a situation as severe as this. She couldn't help feeling sorry for this strange lady, though, and faltered, wanting to help.

"We can't help," Neji said quietly, reading her.

"Don't leave yet, please," Mrs Figg pleaded, raising a hand towards them. "Or- Or if you must, please inform Harry about this - you said you were his neighbor..."

At that, Tenten's shoulders drooped. "I can't," she replied, "Harry Potter is gone - all seven of him."

"Seven of Harry?" Arabella cried, aghast. "What is this? Why wasn't I kept in the loop?"

Tenten grimaced. A glance at Neji told her that he was disgruntled about staying too long in this place - he wasn't a fan of cabbage or cats, either.

"This morning, a bunch of people went over to the Dursleys' to pick him up - and there were seven Harry Potters. They were attacked, and they flew away," Tenten summarized.

Mrs Figg gasped, and held a hand to her heart. "What do you- What do you know of this? I can't believe- Broad daylight- Muggles saw..."

Tenten sighed, and released Neji's hand, stepping over to lean her hip against the back of a couch. It was going to be a long story, and Mrs Figg deserved to know what happened to her acquaintance.

"Sit down," the old woman urged, so Tenten did, stepping forward and warily sinking her butt into the squeaky couch. Neji sat down beside her and took her hand in his. The look in his eyes clearly said, _There better be a good reason for this._

It was a good opportunity to establish a connection with the magical world, Tenten figured.

"It started with the Dursleys leaving," she began. "They've been packing for weeks, but I think they finally left this morning."

Arabella nodded for her to continue, her wrinkled face pale.

"Minutes later, a bunch of people flew in - thirteen in all. They arrived by different means - brooms, a motorbike, and a couple of weird flying horses," Tenten recalled, thinking back. "Some time later, they all flew out- See, before, when all these people went to the Dursleys' place, there wasn't a single Harry Potter among them, I don't think. And right after, when they left, there were seven Harrys, each on a different broom or horse."

The old lady gaped at them. "They were moving him, then," she deduced. "Polyjuice potion to change their appearances, and different forms of transportation to avoid the Trace."

Tenten blinked at the intel, but shelved it for later consideration. "Right after they flew into the air, though, they were suddenly surrounded by those cloaked people from last night... And there was a lot of fighting going on. This- This Mad Eye, as you call him - the snake-man blasted him in the face."

The memory of that pale face with scarlet eyes and no nose still haunted her, and Tenten shivered, huddling closer to Neji. He pulled his fingers from hers and rested his hand on her shoulder as a comforting gesture, one that she was grateful for.

"Snake-man?" Arabella whispered. "You mean, You-Know-Who?"

"'You-Know-Who'?" Tenten echoed. Next to her, Neji frowned. "No, I don't know who he is."

"We call him You-Know-Who. He's the darkest wizard of all time," the old woman replied shakily. "No one dares speak his name. I can't believe he's killed Mad Eye, of all people!"

Tenten winced. She knew there was something not quite right about that snake-man. And Neji had been right in that few could defeat him. "He was flying," she mentioned, "Without any broom or anything - it was like he was smoke."

At that, Arabella gasped and shook, turning a few shades paler. "He- he can fly?"

Tenten nodded and gulped. "Is he that bad?"

Arabella tried to suppress a shudder. "Oh, you Muggles don't know him - he was responsible for a lot of torture, kidnappings and murders, even within the wizarding world."

Tenten felt her stomach flip over on itself, and huddled closer to Neji. "That's horrible," she whispered.

Next to her, Neji's lips thinned. "Is there anywhere that he hasn't attacked yet?"

The old woman shook her head, grizzled gray hair slipping out from her hairnet. "He's been all over - Ireland, Scotland, England. I think he's spent time even in Albania... If you want to escape him, your best bet may be the United States, or Australia."

Neji frowned, and Tenten knew he was considering their options.

"There's word that he's infiltrated the Ministry of Magic," Mrs Figg continued. "Ordinarily, Muggles like you, who've witnessed magic, are supposed to be obliviated - that is, have your memories erased-"

"No!" Tenten yelped in horror.

Arabella held a trembling hand up to calm her. "No, I won't report you to the Ministry - we can't trust them any more, and I won't have them in my house."

Tenten breathed a sigh in relief. She shared a look with Neji, and knew he felt the same.

"What I don't get, though, is how the Death Eaters knew to ambush them," Arabella muttered. "The protection around the Dursleys' will hold up until his next birthday, which is in a few days. There wasn't any need to move him out that quickly - unless they were trying to get a step ahead of You-Know-Who."

"He's after Harry Potter?" Tenten asked, wincing. So 'Death Eaters' were what the dark wizards were called.

"Harry Potter is the only one who can stop him," Mrs Figg answered, nodding.

It sounded horrible, to have the fate of the world rest on one's shoulders, Tenten thought. She grimaced. "But the bad guys knew to ambush them today."

Wrinkled features pulled into a frown. "Then, as much as I hate to admit it, there may be a traitor among them," Arabella said uneasily. "They didn't trust me enough to inform me about this plan, and I'm part of the Order."

Tenten made a face. As much as it sounded like a coward to admit it, she was glad she wasn't part of the resistance against this You-Know-Who character. "So... what do we do about Mad Eye?"

The three of them returned to staring at the still body of the stocky man. He wasn't very bloody, for having fallen from so high in the air, and he looked to be frozen in a glare even in death. His eyelid sagged over his empty eye socket.

Tenten didn't even want to think about filching his possessions - it felt wrong to.

"I can't do magic, so I can't preserve his body," Arabella finally said. "The best we can do is to bury him. I don't want to risk owling anyone I can't trust."

Tenten slid a look at Neji; he breathed a long sigh through his nose, and gave her a glance that said, _Do what you must._

"Neji and I will help," Tenten volunteered, resting a hand on his thigh. "But why aren't you able to do magic?"

The old woman frowned, though she seemed a little resigned at this point. "I'm a Squib - that is, I'm born to wizard parents, but don't have an ounce of magic blood in me."

"That must really suck," Tenten sympathized. She stood up, and tugged Neji along with her. "We'll help with digging a hole - where do you want the grave?"

Neji made Tenten wear the invisibility cloak (she did so with great reluctance) and they followed Arabella Figg to a spot beneath a large oak tree in her backyard, where she provided them with a couple of shovels, and took one for herself.

Conversation was kept to a minimum; they agreed that it would be unwise to speak of magic out in the open, and it was the better part of an hour before a decently-deep hole was excavated. Mrs Figg helped haul the soil out with a bucket when it was too deep for all three of them to be in the same hole, and by the end of it, Neji and Tenten were both covered in a fine layer of dirt.

Back in the house, Arabella Figg offered them cool drinks in return for their efforts, and pulled a wooden chest out, placing it next to Mad Eye's body. Tenten watched as the old woman began to fill the box with Mad Eye's possessions. There was a hip-flask, his wand, a shimmery cloak similar to the one Tenten had, a sack of coins, and other trinkets that Tenten couldn't identify.

"Are these going to be passed on to his family?" she asked Arabella curiously.

The old lady frowned. She was a lot calmer now than when she'd first discovered them with Mad Eye's body. "I don't know if there are any of his family left - perhaps Tonks might want these."

Arabella thought for a little while, then pulled the sack of coins from the chest, and shut its lid. "Here," she said, handing the sack of coins to Tenten and glancing at her and Neji. "For helping with his burial."

Tenten gaped at her. "But- but we aren't done with the burial yet, and I couldn't possibly..."

Deep down, she did want the money, though. (Neji slanted a knowing look at her.)

Mrs Figg smiled at her. "I heard the coins in your bag," she said, nodding towards Neji, before glancing at the bunched-up invisibility cloak beside Tenten. "And you have that invisibility cloak. I imagine you might be collecting wizard money as well."

Tenten blushed. "Yes, we were, actually. We found them on Dolohov last night-"

"Dolohov?" Arabella Figg interrupted, her eyes wide. "He's one of the Death Eaters - I heard he was present when Dumbledore died."

With a wince, Tenten recounted the dark wizards' invasion of her home the night before.

"I can't believe you took down a Death Eater by yourself," Mrs Figg said in admiration. "And you're a Muggle, no less."

Tenten smiled, flattered. "Well, that sure saved Neji and I," she said. "We found some things on Dolohov's corpse, and I wondered if we could buy magical items with the wizarding money..."

Arabella frowned, and clicked her tongue. "Now's not a good time to be visiting Diagon Alley. I've heard that a lot of the shops have been closing - Ollivander's gone missing, and so has Florean Fortescue."

"Oh." Tenten winced in disappointment.

"Maybe when the war's over," Arabella said kindly. "It wouldn't do to risk your lives going there now - Diagon Alley's just a shadow of what it used to be."

Curious, Tenten asked, "What is Diagon Alley like?"

"It's a wonderful place," Arabella began. "Well, it was. There were all sorts of shops there selling magical things - books, wands, brooms, you name it. Quite a few of the shops are closed now though, due to the war."

Tenten pressed her shoulder against Neji's in disappointment. "How do we get there?"

Both Neji and Mrs Figg frowned at her.

"Don't go until you know for certain that it's safe," Mrs Figg said reprovingly.

With an eager nod, Tenten leaned forward with a smile. "I promise we won't go until it's safe to."

Arabella looked at her for a moment, to gauge her truthfulness, then sighed, and answered, "You can access it from the back end of the Leaky Cauldron, which is located at Charing Cross Road, near the Charing Cross railway station. Tap three times on the brick on your right, twelve bricks down from the pub exit, and seven bricks up."

Tenten absorbed the information slowly and nodded. "I'll remember that."

"Shall we bury Mad Eye, then?" Neji asked, breaking into the conversation.

At that, all of them looked at Mad Eye's body on the floor. Tenten stood and bowed lightly towards him. Neji mimicked her gesture.

"Thank you for the coins, Mr Mad Eye," she said quietly. The sack of coins was a little different from those they'd pilfered from the other Death Eaters - it was made with worn tweed, that still felt sturdy to her touch. Tenten handed it to Neji; he tucked it into his backpack.

Together, they heaved Mad Eye's body out into the backyard and laid him to rest in the trench they'd dug. Mrs Figg said a quiet prayer for him; Neji and Tenten bowed their respects. Together, Neji, Tenten and Mrs Figg shoveled piles of dirt back onto Mad Eye.

It took a much shorter time to bury him than to dig the grave; Mrs Figg marked the head of the grave with a pile of stacked stones, then scanned the skies above them. She turned to Neji and Tenten when she seemed to determine that it was safe.

"You should return home, and lie low for a while," Arabella said quietly. "I don't think this is all we'll be seeing of the Death Eaters."

Tenten pursed her lips; Mrs Figg looked at her in question.

"Well, the thing is, we wanted to visit the Durs- Harry Potter's home," Tenten explained hesitantly. Neji angled her a sour look, for blaming this partly on him. "I'm positive that they won't be coming back-"

"They won't," Mrs Figg agreed.

"-So we wanted to see if there was anything to be salvaged, before their home gets destroyed," Tenten mumbled. It didn't sound like the most upstanding thing to be doing to the place where the famous Harry Potter lived. But Tenten was curious to see if he'd left any of his school books behind - that bag he'd had with him when making his escape didn't seem like it could store very much at all. "I mean, I'm interested in Harry Potter's school textbooks - things of that sort."

Arabella pursed her lips. Tenten grimaced - they hadn't done anything to offend her yet, but she might very well have with this suggestion.

"It's not entirely a bad idea," Mrs Figg said slowly. Tenten gaped at her; even Neji looked surprised. "I can foresee the Dursley home being destroyed when the protection on it wears off - it may already have worn off, with the departure of Harry and his relatives."

"So the sooner we visit, the better?" Tenten suggested.

Mrs Figg dipped her chin. "Yes. No time like the present, it seems."

Next to her, Neji gave an inaudible sigh. Tenten looked sheepishly at him, and tugged him towards the side gate.

"Neji and I should be going, then," she told Mrs Figg. Neji pulled their invisibility cloak out of the backpack, and stepped close to Tenten to drape it around their shoulders. It felt strange to not be able to see the rest of her body all of a sudden. "It's been nice meeting you-"

"I should come along with you," Arabella interjected.

Tenten felt her eyes grow wide. Was Mrs Figg trying to see if they took anything of value? "Really? Why?"

"Just in case. I have a feeling that thieves might come along soon, if they knew that the Dursley home was vacated," Arabella muttered in an undertone. She followed them to the side of her home. "Wait for me, please."

Tenten checked her watch while they stood around - it was late morning now. Had Harry Potter made it to safety? Did any of his other companions become a casualty?

Mrs Figg returned soon after with a cat at her heel. She pulled an invisibility cloak over her shoulders (perhaps it was the one she'd found on Mad Eye?), and drew its hood over her head. Neji did the same with their cloak hood, rendering them invisible.

"I'll walk next to you," Mrs Figg said. (Tenten vaguely wondered if she went everywhere in that hairnet and those carpet slippers.) "Privet Drive isn't too far away."

Tenten felt a thin, bony hand brush hers - she reached out, and Mrs Figg took her hand. They began the short walk back towards Tenten's home, and Tenten thought about the dark-haired boy that she only saw once every so often on her street.

"Lots of people want to see Harry Potter safe," she remarked. But it sucked, for everyone's hopes to lie on him. He probably felt really pressured. "I read that he goes to school."

"He goes to Hogwarts." Arabella's voice drifted from somewhere beside her, "I've heard that he does decently in school."

"What does one learn in magic school?" What sort of books might she be able to find in Potter's home? Would any of it even benefit Neji and herself? Tenten pursed her lips in thought.

"Oh, all sorts, like Transfiguration, Potions, and Charms." It sounded as if Mrs Figg wasn't too keen on talking about learning magic - and it figured, because she had no magic blood - so Tenten changed the subject.

"What do you do for a living, Mrs Figg?" she asked. Next to her, Neji gave her a pale-eyed look.

"You're too nosy for your own good," he whispered.

"It's research," Tenten whispered back.

"I breed kneazles and part-kneazles," came the response. "Isn't Mr Tibbles such a dear? He's part-kneazle, you know, kneazles are intelligent creatures that can detect suspicious people..."

Tenten glanced to the side - the cat wasn't visible. Perhaps he'd slipped into Mrs Figg's cloak.

"We'd benefit more from knowing about their world, like how much the coins are worth, for instance," Neji said beneath his breath.

Tenten's eyes widened; she realized that he was right. As soon as the conversation with Mrs Figg had an opening, she asked, "How are the galleons, sickles and knuts related to each other, Mrs Figg? I mean, in our world, a pound is a hundred pence..."

"Well, a sickle is twenty-nine knuts, and a galleon is seventeen sickles," Mrs Figg's voice floated over.

Both Neji and Tenten winced. Who would invent this currency in their right mind? Worse, who used prime numbers as a factor of multiplication?

"Is there any way we can obtain more magical money, aside from other wizards?" Tenten asked next.

_More?_ Neji mouthed at her. Tenten ignored him.

"The bank in Diagon Alley - Gringotts is its name - does conversions between Muggle money and wizard money, for a price," Mrs Figg replied. "Is there something you want in particular?"

"She wants a unicorn," Neji interjected flatly.

An honest laugh burst out from next to Tenten; she glowered at Neji, for embarrassing her like that.

He smirked at her.

"You can't buy a unicorn," Mrs Figg said, a smile in her tone. "It's illegal to sell them - they are very pure creatures, and are too fast for humans to capture them."

Tenten frowned dubiously - surely there must be a way to capture them, like with nets, or something. Perhaps there would be some on the black market.

"You don't have any space for a unicorn," Neji told her. "Besides, if you're moving in with me, I'm not going to allow you to bring a unicorn."

She scrunched her face up. "Who said I'm moving in with you?"

"Me," Neji told her. "It's not safe for you to be living here - it's a potentially dangerous location."

"He's right, you know," Mrs Figg said as they turned into Privet Drive. "The Death Eaters may be back."

At that, Tenten grimaced. "I don't know about moving," she said. "I'd just be exposing myself to attack."

"You can't live in a cave for an indeterminate amount of time, either," Neji returned.

"It's not like where you live is completely safe, either," she shot back. "There were attacks there, too."

Neji fell silent, and Tenten huffed. In the end, it was Mrs Figg who spoke up.

"Well, we're here," she said, stepping up to the neatly-mowed lawn of Four Privet Drive.

Tenten put her dealings with Neji out of her mind, and looked eagerly towards the Dursleys' recently-vacated home. Surely there had to be some hints of magic around. Next to her, Neji frowned, and tightened his hold around her waist.

"Be careful," he intoned. "We don't know if there's anyone in there already."

"I'll look first," Mrs Figg volunteered. She released Tenten's hand, and Tenten watched as the grass flattened where she stepped. The footprints paused next to the living room window.

There was a gasp. "That Mundungus Fletcher," Mrs Figg cried angrily.

Tenten watched as the old woman and her cat came into view again; she'd shrugged off her invisibility cloak and crammed it into a large pocket, before testing the doorknob - the front door opened easily.

"Mundungus Fletcher!" Arabella screeched, slamming the door open.

Inside, the living room was relatively ordered - neatly-arranged, like what Tenten would expect Mrs Dursley to do, since their lawn always seemed so pristine. It looked as if there were some things missing - packed and brought away - like gaps in a line of picture frames, as well as groups of ornaments that had one or two missing from them.

What drew Tenten's attention, though, was the squat man in the living room, who was in the middle of fitting silverware into a large case. Mrs Figg stormed into the room, followed by Mr Tibbles; Tenten dragged Neji along, stepping into the foyer behind the old woman.

"What are you doing here, you useless thief?" Arabella yelled, striding closer to the man.

Tenten swung the door shut behind herself and Neji; the man in the living room, Mundungus, looked briefly in their direction at the movement, but he was distracted by Mrs Figg bearing down on him.

"S'up, Figgy?" he said, glancing towards Neji and Tenten again.

It wasn't a good idea for a stranger (who was probably a wizard) to know their exact location. Neji must have realized the same, because he began guiding Tenten away, leading her around the immaculately-dusted living room.

Upon closer observation, Tenten saw that this Mundungus Fletcher person was dressed in a tattered overcoat and dirty shoes. He was unshaven, had long, straggly ginger hair and bandy legs, and looked pretty doleful in general. A very, very far cry from London's highest-ranked bachelor.

The living room smelled faintly of stale tobacco and alcohol, and Tenten wondered if that was from Mundungus, or the Dursleys. Mundungus was slowly backing away from Arabella, who advanced on him. She grabbed a small vase off the coffee table and hurled it at him; he brought his arms up to defend himself, and the ornament bounced uselessly off his forearms, before smashing onto the hardwood floor.

"What are you doing here, is what I want to know, Mundungus Fletcher!" she shouted. "Why are you stealing from the Dursleys?"

"Well I- That is, they've upped and left, 'aven't they?" The bandy-legged man lowered his arms and glanced towards the door again. He looked around the room, before returning his eyes to Mrs Figg.

"And how did you know that they've left?" she bellowed, reaching down for another ornament. This time, it struck him squarely in the forehead. "Were you with Harry Potter? Is he alive?"

"Well, I- I wouldn't know," Mundungus stammered, backing away. Mrs Figg advanced on him - this time, she'd picked up a larger vase, one with flowers and water in it that she ungraciously emptied onto the floor. "I was called away, you see-"

"Called away? I'll give you called away! You were with Harry, weren't you? I bet you fled with your tail between your legs, didn't you!" Mrs Figg didn't throw the large vase at him. Instead, she stepped right up to him and gripped the neck of the vase with both her hands, hitting Mundungus wherever she could reach.

"Ouch! Gerroff- gerroff, you mad old bat!" He attempted to swat her away, but backed into a couch and had nowhere to move. "You didn't know the situation! You-Know-'Oo was there, with a flock of his gits-"

"You deserter!" Mrs Figg cried in horror. "Everyone else stayed, but you fled!"

Tenten watched the fight in stupefied silence. Had this man been the Harry Potter who had disappeared?

"You were on the broomstick with Mad Eye," Tenten blurted. "You disappeared, and Mad Eye was murdered."

Mrs Figg's eyes widened in shock, and Mundungus turned wildly at the sound of Tenten's voice. Neji pulled her away, into the kitchen, in case Mundungus figured out where they were, or decided to attack at random.

"Who's there?" Mundungus said suspiciously.

"You left, and You-Know-Who killed Mad Eye!" Arabella screeched. With renewed effort, she cornered Mundungus, and bashed him repeatedly with the vase. He threw his hands up; she shoved the vase between them, smashing its base into his nose. "You worthless pile of bat droppings! You scarpered, you ruined the operation-"

"Ouch! Ouch! Gerroff, you crazy old 'ag! They paired me with Mad Eye, I told them I didn't want to-" Mundungus sputtered. He finally disappeared with a pop, and reappeared two feet away.

Mrs Figg snarled, and stalked towards him again. "You better have a good reason why you caused Mad Eye's death, Mundungus Fletcher, you worthless pile of dung! Wait 'til Harry hears about this, I swear-"

"I told them, I'm a protector, I shouldn't be disguised as 'Arry-" Mundungus sputtered.

The vase smashed into his gut, and Mundungus grunted, bending over slightly. Mrs Figg growled and aimed for his skull, hitting him repeatedly with the vase.

"Mad - Eye's- dead - and - all - you - can - think - up - are - worthless - excuses - to - save - your - leathery - hide!" she shouted, punctuating each word with a heavy strike, on whichever part of his body she could reach. "Let's see you try to show your face to Harry now, huh! Have you forgotten our cause?"

There was a light prod on Tenten's hand; she looked over at Neji in surprise. He was pressing a wand into her hand.

"Just in case we need to pretend," he whispered. "I have one too."

She gulped and nodded, gripping the wooden stick tightly.

"Ouch! Gerroff! Why don't you volunteer yourself, Figgy," Mundungus finally snapped, glowering at the old lady. He pushed her away and glanced towards a display cabinet next to the wall, where there was a collection of antique silver plates. "You-Know-'Oo was there, 'im and 'is followers! It was a trap - only a fool would stay-"

"You know full well I can't do magic," Arabella retorted, shaking with fury. "Why can't you grow a spine, you thieving git - first you shirk your duty, and not only that, but you return to Harry Potter's house to steal his things!"

Tenten winced guiltily.

"I'm just- I'm just saving them in case 'e returns!" Mundungus claimed.

"Right! And since when have I ever known you to be that charitable!" Mrs Figg stepped forward again, raising her vase.

"Stop it, woman!" Mundungus protested, glowering at Arabella. "Stop 'itting me, I ain't done no wrong-"

"So you say!" cried the old lady. She rushed at Mundungus with the vase, and Tenten watched in horror as he pulled his wand from his sleeve.

Out of the four of them, Mundungus was the only one with magic, and Tenten didn't have any daggers to stop him with. It hit her then that she and Neji were in the _kitchen_. Which should have some knives. She swore, and turned them around, pulling Neji along.

"What is it?" he hissed.

"I need knives," Tenten whispered back. The commotion in the living room was still escalating, and she wasn't about to see a defenseless old lady get hurt.

Neji began grabbing the kitchen drawers and pulling them open silently - it just so happened that the knives were in their own drawer, right beneath the counter. Tenten breathed a sigh in relief, and shoved a few small ones into her back pockets, before turning back to the living room with Neji.

"I can't believe you're threatening me with a wand!" Arabella yelled. "I can't use magic, and you're going to hurt me?"

"I've 'ad enough of your meddling, you old bat!" Mundungus was saying, "Now gerroff before I 'ex you!"

Mrs Figg gasped in horror. "The nerve of you, you slimeball! To think Dumbledore recruited you!"

Mundungus raised his wand, and Tenten panicked. She plucked her wand from her jeans pocket and shoved it through the sleeve of the cloak, before yanking the hood of the cloak down, so her head, as well as Neji's, was visible.

"Follow me," she hissed at Neji, and in a louder voice, "Over here, you slimy git!"

Tenten didn't know any spells, but as Mundungus and Arabella both turned, she scowled and raised her wand, which was visible past the cloak sleeve. Neji did the same.

Mundungus's beady eyes grew wide. Mrs Figg's jaw dropped.

"Get out, Mundungus," Tenten threatened, stepping forward. Next to her, Neji followed suit, his wand pointed at the thief.

"We happen to know a few spells," Neji said calmly.

Mundungus stood stock-still, clearly assessing his situation.

"Get out now," Tenten snarled, and began moving her wand. With her dominant hand, she grabbed a steak knife, ready to fling it if the ruse did not work. "There are more of us hidden in this house."

"'Oo're you?" Mundungus spat, narrowing his eyes.

Tenten grinned. "I took down Dolohov by myself. Wanna duel?"

The man hesitated, and when he didn't move, Tenten grew impatient, pulling her other hand out of the invisibility cloak.

It took a split second; her knife was flying through the air, followed by two others in rapid succession.

Mundungus stared in shock, and he disappeared with a pop just before the knives hurtled through the spot where his head had been.

Tenten waited for the man to reappear. For long moments, all there was was tense silence, and Neji shifted against her, turning to see if they would be attacked from the back.

When no attacks came, invisible or otherwise, Tenten relaxed against Neji, heaving a sigh. "That was close."

"That was impressive!" Mrs Figg exclaimed, a touch of admiration in her tone. "You aim well, young lady."

Tenten flashed a grin. "Think he'll be back soon, though?"

Arabella frowned then, and the lines on her face grew more pronounced for it. "I don't know. He may be back soon for his loot - I'll suggest you take what interests you first."

"You were just railing at this Mundungus Fletcher person for thievery," Neji pointed out evenly. He took the wand from Tenten, and tucked it away with his.

"You're a different case," the old woman sighed. "I don't think you're really thieving to make a profit like that git does."

Tenten shrugged guiltily. She had suggested selling the books last night, while she was alone with Neji. "Well, I'm interested in Harry Potter's school textbooks, really." Glancing around, she found nothing that seemed remotely magical. "I don't think there's anything else that's magical around here."

Mrs Figg shook her head. "The Dursleys were very much against magic," she revealed, much to Tenten's surprise. "They detested Harry."

Tenten glanced at Neji, and cringed. At least his family wasn't hostile towards them.

"Well... we'll just be looking around for his things, then," Tenten suggested.

Arabella nodded. "Thank you for chasing Mundungus away back there. I had no idea he would attack me."

"I can't believe he did, either," Tenten admitted.

"It's very dishonorable to do so," Neji said next to her.

Mrs Figg scoffed. "There isn't an ounce of honor in Mundungus. He steals whenever he can, and sells his loot to profit off it."

Tenten winced, still feeling twinges of guilt. "Well, we'll head upstairs to have a look around," she informed the old woman. "Give a shout if you need any help, Mrs Figg."

"Thank you." Mrs Figg cracked a tiny smile. "I'll take a look around."

With that, Tenten led the way up the stairs, feeling her pulse slowly return to normal.

* * *

_A/N: This chapter was insanely difficult to write, mainly due to the lack of NejiTen. Apologies for that. I hope Mrs Figg and Mundungus are in-character.. I've never attempted to write any HP character before this story lol. (And I won't be returning to it either.)_

_Been reading OroAnko lately - lots of well-written fic, surprisingly enough. Also been reading _LuteLyre_'s stuff - not really NejiTen, but if you appreciate powerful, well-written fic similar to _wildcatt_'s, head on over!_

_As always, thank you for taking the time to review!_


	6. More Magical Things

_Final chapter, epilogue next week. To those who have been hanging in there, here's some NejiTen for you ;)_

_**Iris** \- thank you for the feedback! This fic essentially has Neji and Tenten as spectators.. no overarching plot (more of a slice of not-so-normal life thing) except that Tenten is going around robbing dead people of their things, and Neji follows her around. LOL It was really meant to be a oneshot written around the prompt "pretending to be wizards"... but you can see how long it took for Neji and Tenten to get to that point. My lack of motivation essentially came from the NejiTen relationship not being part of the plot - finding Moody was part of the story, but that was just really dry to me. :P_

_Naruto, Harry Potter, and their characters do not belong to me._

* * *

**Hello Wizard World**

**Chapter 6: More Magical Things**

It was only after they'd returned to Tenten's home that Neji and Tenten allowed themselves to relax.

There had been no other Death Eater attacks, and they had made sure that Mrs Figg could manage with her carpet bag (it had been charmed to have an extraordinarily large interior) before heading home from across the street. Curiously enough, Dolohov's corpse had mysteriously disappeared by the time they got back - Tenten was glad that she and Neji weren't around when whoever it was came to claim him.

All the same, they did a quick check around the house - no traps had been set off, and everything laid undisturbed. Tenten still felt a little uneasy, though, and huddled close to Neji when they emptied their loot on the floor of the guest bedroom.

"We should've taken more books," she muttered, gazing at the piles of thick, dusty tomes that they'd hugged in their arms beneath the invisibility cloak.

They had found a number of items in Harry Potter's bedroom - an open suitcase full of broken quills and glass, among other unidentifiable items. In a corner, there had been piles and piles of books - books about potions, charms, transfiguration, even magical creatures and the history of magic. There were robes - scarlet ones and black ones, a cauldron, and parchment and intact quills. Tenten had eyed the cauldron, but Neji flatly refused to carry it back.

In the end, all they'd got their hands on were a number of books - _Unfogging the Future_, _A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration_, _The Standard Book of Spells (Grades One and Two)_, _Practical Defense Against the Dark Arts_, _Magical Drafts and Potions_, as well as a few others.

"I'm glad Mrs Figg didn't stop us from bringing these home," Tenten said in relief, leaning her head against Neji's shoulder.

He slanted a calm look at her and shrugged. "She was preoccupied with salvaging some of the Dursleys' things," he answered. "Besides, there didn't seem to be much of worth there."

"Much of worth to you, since you're so rich," Tenten grumbled. "I still have to pay my rent, and-"

"Move in with me," he suggested suddenly. She glanced at him in surprise.

"You sure are insistent, huh, Neji?" Tenten flashed a mischievous grin. "Want a live-in pretend-girlfriend so the girls will stop hounding you?"

He appeared to consider her words with some measure of amusement. "My primary concern is that this Death Eater group will return to vandalize Harry Potter's old home. I can see them using it as a way to diminish morale on his side of the war, and it will be more effective if they manage to burn the entire street down."

Tenten grimaced. It had occurred to her, briefly, that being Harry Potter's neighbor was not necessarily a good thing.

"Are you saying I should move out now?" She looked uncertainly at him. "I have quite a few things lying around."

"Pack your essentials. I'll give you until tomorrow," he answered, surveying her with those pale eyes of his. "That should be enough time to get everything ready."

"And how are we moving out? Your car's burnt to a crisp on the inside." Tenten winced at the memory of Neji's Ferrari - that was thousands of pounds that literally went up in smoke.

"We'll take your car," he replied.

Her Honda wasn't much to speak of, but at least it had been spared when the attack descended last night. Suddenly fatigued, Tenten rested her entire weight against Neji.

"I can't believe so many things have happened, and it's not even 24 hours yet," she sighed.

He glanced at her in amusement. "We do still have 24 hours to pack. I need to be returning to my work if there's nothing else you need me for - Uchiha has been subtly reminding me that he needs some things done."

"Workaholic," Tenten muttered. She gave him a dirty look.

"It's not like you aren't one yourself," Neji countered. "Although the stolen possessions occupy first priority in your mind."

It was actually him who occupied first priority, but he didn't have to know that.

Tenten blew a loud raspberry at him. "Well, at least I got to see you pretending to be a wizard."

Neji slanted a begrudging look at her. "That wasn't entirely my choice."

She grinned. "All the same, you must've looked pretty formidable waving a wand around."

He hadn't any goodwill to offer her but a sour stare, so Tenten turned to the sacks of coins that still remained in his backpack. She spread some sheets of newspaper out on the carpeted floor, pulled the sacks out, and emptied the bag of loose coins first.

The first wizard she freed of worldly possessions didn't have very much at all - mostly just knuts and sickles. Tenten hardly glanced at the meager scatter of silver and bronze, and reached for the next smallest sack - from the wizard who had helped scare off the terrified lady.

This first sack had a decent amount of silver, though not much - she figured that it didn't help for one to carry so much metal around in one's pockets.

The second sack, from the wizard caught between Car Guy and Other Guy, had better pickings - plenty of knuts and sickles, but also a decent handful of galleons. Tenten beamed, and Neji watched on in thinly-veiled curiosity.

The third sack, strong, worn tweed - Mad Eye's - had a significantly larger fraction of silver and gold, and some bronze coins. Tenten felt her heart swell by two sizes in her chest - she and Neji were rich!

"Do you want a 50-50 split?" she asked Neji, barely flicking a glance at him as she began to sort the coins out at once - in stacks of tens, for easier counting. Neji reached over and helped stack the coins, while Tenten retrieved Dolohov's coin sack, to have a better picture of their new fortune.

The tally ended up at 84 knuts, 92 sickles, and 29 galleons.

Tenten couldn't keep the grin off her face. "Do you think that's enough for a unicorn?"

"No," Neji answered flatly. "That's nowhere near enough. Besides, I have no space in my townhouse for a unicorn."

She pouted in disappointment. "What about a baby unicorn?"

He narrowed his eyes, and tried to gauge if she was joking. "They have to be even more expensive, Tenten."

Tenten huffed, and separated the different denominations of coins into different sacks. "You didn't answer earlier - do you want a 50-50 split?"

"What for?" Neji looked curiously at her. "I'm not interested in owning magical artifacts."

"But you might want to." Tenten grinned. "Like, what if you needed a love potion?"

The look on his face told her that Neji sorely wanted to roll his eyes.

"Oh come on, you aren't dating, you might just need a girl for a one-night stand," she teased. "Surely there's a potion out there for that."

"Are you suggesting that I'm incapable of finding such a girl myself?" Neji arched an elegant eyebrow.

Tenten laughed and linked her arm with his. "I guess not. Girls are throwing themselves at your feet all the time. Maybe you need an invisibility cloak instead, to hide from them."

"We already have one," he pointed out.

"But it'll be better if we have two, won't it?" she returned. "One for each of us, or in case it rips."

Neji shrugged. "Perhaps."

Tenten set the coins aside, and reached for the spellbooks next.

"I wonder what Diagon Alley is like," she said absently, running her fingers over various book spines. "Do wizards wear normal clothes like us?"

Neji considered her question for a moment. "They may wear robes like the ones we saw in Harry Potter's bedroom."

"Damn," Tenten muttered, "Then we should've taken some back with us."

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"I don't want to stand out like a sore thumb," she explained, scrunching her face. "I mean, they'd know for sure we stand out - just look at all the weird clothes Mrs Figg, that Mundungus guy and Mad Eye were wearing."

Neji lifted his shoulders slightly. "Then all we have to do would be to dress in a similar way."

"Which is to completely remove any fashion sense we might have," Tenten deduced. "And wear long coats, like trench coats, and things like that."

He dipped his chin. "We could also consult Mrs Figg... Although I don't think her style is something you're keen on following."

A giggle burst from her throat. "No, it isn't," Tenten agreed. "But I bet you'd feel strange if you were to wear just robes, and nothing else beneath."

Her thoughts strayed, and Tenten focused on Neji's eyes, to keep her attention on his face. He looked dubiously at her.

"Are you trying to make me feel uneasy?" he asked.

"Why would you feel uneasy?" Tenten grinned. "I bet you look good beneath your clothes anyway."

He stared at her, and she paused, thinking back on her words.

"Well, forget I said that," she muttered, a blush rising to her cheeks. This was awkward.

To occupy her mind with something else, Tenten reached for a book that was restrained tightly with a belt. It was leather-bound and had several large interlocking teeth along its edges, and some pages looked as if they had been ripped out.

"_The Monster Book of Monsters_," she read, exchanging a glance with Neji. "I hope this isn't a crazy book that even the famous Harry Potter couldn't handle."

But it seemed likely, when it was bound shut like that. Tenten pursed her lips and eased her fingers into the gap between the leather straps.

"You're really going to free that?" Neji asked suspiciously.

"It can't be that bad, can it?" Tenten replied. "I mean, it's just a book."

"It could... harbor many things that could be unleashed if it were to be unbound," Neji suggested. "What do you think?"

She paused. "Well, it could spew a burst of fire, or acid, or some mythical creature..."

Neji raised his eyebrows. "Are we really opening that book, then?"

Tenten chewed on her lip. Perhaps there was a genie within? Or was it a magical creature? Why had Harry Potter decided to bind the book?

"Now I'm really curious about what's inside," she said. "Why don't we open it over the bathtub - that way, if it spurts fire or something, it'll be extinguished."

Neji shrugged. "Your house, your call."

They made their way to the bathroom, and Tenten ran the bath, before tugging at the belt strap. To be safe, Neji held the other side of the book firmly, watching as she pulled the end of the belt out of the buckle.

As soon as the tension eased on the book, it began to tremble; Neji loosened his grip in surprise. Tenten wasn't in time to stop herself from tugging any more at the belt, and the book tipped out of the belt loop and fell onto the floor between their feet.

In the next moment, it had begun to snap at their feet, large teeth seeking Tenten's ankles.

She shrieked, and danced out of the way, bathtub forgotten, as the _Monster Book_ somehow knew where she was, and followed after her into the hallway.

"Neji, help!" Tenten cried, watching with a mix of fear and morbid fascination as the book leaped after her and chased her to her bedroom. Tenten jumped onto her bed; the book could not cross a height that great, it appeared, and snapped at the leg of her bed instead. She thought it would probably growl if it could.

Neji followed them into the bedroom soon after; Tenten looked up at him.

"Where were you?" she snapped, creeping over to the edge of her bed and looking down at the book, which was happily gnawing through her bed covers to the wooden leg of her bed. It seemed as if the book was already wearing holes through her sheets.

"I was shutting the bath off," he explained, crossing the room carefully, pale eyes trained on the vicious book.

"I see why Harry Potter bound it with that belt," Tenten muttered.

Neji produced the belt from somewhere, and Tenten flicked an uncertain glance at him.

"How on Earth do you plan on capturing it?" she asked. "Or are you thinking of just binding it to the bed?"

"The second idea seems to be the better one," he decided, slowly creeping forward, belt held out in front of him.

Tenten winced, unsure if this was a good idea. Perhaps they needed thick mittens in order to deal with this book.

It was as if the book sensed Neji's threat to its freedom when Neji was stooping over it, holding the belt out in front of himself. Without warning, _The Monster Book of Monsters_ released the bed leg and flew at Neji instead.

Neji stumbled backwards in surprise, pale eyes wide, and hopped around the room trying to avoid the large set of teeth snapping at him.

Tenten watched in a mix of uncertainty and amusement - it wasn't often that she got to see Neji jumping from one foot to the other, and looking way out of his element for once.

"I think the other books are probably easier to handle than this one," Tenten remarked, still following Neji's haphazard path through the bedroom. "What about throwing something heavy on it?"

"Like yourself?" Neji suggested, his eyes trained on the snapping book.

Tenten narrowed her eyes. "Like myself?" she asked, offended. "Are you implying that I'm heavy, Neji Hyuuga?"

He realized his mistake then, and glanced up at her apologetically, only to have the book come within inches of closing its teeth around his shin. Neji swore, and jumped backwards. "It wasn't my true opinion," he bit, "I'm trying to think of a solution here."

It didn't seem as if the book would do much harm other than bite them, and Neji could always join her on top of the bed if he were out of options. With that in mind, Tenten grinned, and settled down to watch the fray. "So your instinctive thought is that I'm fat, huh, Hyuuga?"

"It isn't," he grit, clenching his jaw. Pale eyes darted around the room; Neji led the book away from the door. "Why don't you grab the heaviest book you can find - you'll be safe if you attacked it from behind."

"Sounds like a good idea to me." Tenten hopped off the bed and darted into the next room, casting her eyes over the pile of textbooks for the thickest tome. _A History of Magic_ caught her eye, and she grabbed it, before sprinting back to her bedroom.

Neji was still dancing just beyond the reach of the _Monster Book_; Tenten bit a smile down and focused, slowly falling into step behind the toothed monstrosity as Neji led it in a straight path to the other side of the room. She anticipated the progress of the leaping book, and-

_SLAM!_

The _Monster Book_ was squashed beneath _A History of Magic_ and Tenten herself, and it struggled, but was otherwise trapped and immobile.

Before her, Neji heaved a sigh of relief.

"That was an adventure," he said dryly.

Tenten slumped forward, still holding _A History of Magic_ down on the _Monster Book_, and rested her knees on the dusty book cover. She exhaled heavily. "It sure was."

"I don't see why anyone would bother with a book like that," Neji muttered, deciding that it was safe to come forward. He sat himself on the edge of Tenten's bed, surveying the books pressed beneath her. "It's impossible to read."

She frowned. "Surely there has to be a way to read it," she countered. As an author, she couldn't imagine putting all that effort into a thick tome, only for it to be ostracized by people who didn't know how to access that information. "It might be a secret code, or activation word, or something. What would you say to get a monster to listen to you?"

"'Good boy'?" Neji suggested flatly.

Tenten pursed her lips, and lifted her knees slightly away from the pile of books. The _Monster Book_ trembled, as if it were trying to free itself. "Wrong answer," she informed Neji.

"What would you say, then?" he retorted with a light frown. "For all you know, it isn't a voice command that neutralizes it."

She sat back in thought, rubbing her chin. "Good monster? Good girl?" Tenten tried. When neither worked, she thought about the intimidating animals that she'd seen in zoos. "You know... Tigers like having their bellies rubbed."

Neji raised a questioning eyebrow.

"I like having backrubs," Tenten continued. "Maybe the _Monster Book_ likes a spinal rub."

"Doesn't hurt to try that," Neji said, though his eyes betrayed his doubts.

Lifting her knees off the books by an increment so she can gauge the _Monster Book_'s reaction, Tenten traced her fingers down its spine ever so slowly.

It was to her utter shock that the _Monster Book_ shuddered, then stilled. Her mouth fell open.

Warily, she lifted _A History of Magic_ away from the toothed tome, ready to restrain it at a moment's notice, though the _Monster Book_ remained placid. Tenten handed the history book to Neji, and, with a wince, hesitantly pried the _Monster Book_ open.

It did not snap at her.

"It worked," she breathed, eyes wide. Above her, Neji watched with similar surprise, though he got to his feet soon after. "That was easier than I expected."

"Congrats," he said. "I have to get back to work though. Try not to get into any more trouble."

Tenten narrowed her eyes at him. "Workaholic."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Weren't you going to write three chapters today?"

Her eyes widened when she remembered the goal she'd set the night before. "Crap," Tenten swore. "I'll get on it right now."

Neji smirked, and handed Tenten the belt the _Monster Book_ was previously bound with. She flipped through its pages quickly - there was all sorts of information about sphinxes, hippogriffs, trolls, and creatures she'd never even heard about before. Resolving to return to this at some point, Tenten shelved the information regarding the _Monster Book_ aside, and bound it tightly, in case the spine-stroking trick wore off.

"I'll finish my work before you can," she challenged, and Neji tilted his head to a side, disbelieving.

"You take an entire day to write a chapter," he pointed out. "And that's on a good day."

Tenten glowered at him. "Well, today is a good day."

They found themselves in her study soon after, with cups of tea and sandwiches for lunch between their respective computers.

It was very easy for Tenten to slip into her constructed world, and the sound of Neji's typing faded out quickly when she returned to the universe she'd created - full of spaceships and explosions and strange alien creatures. Time slipped past her grasp; she was running with her main character through a corridor of explosions, firing pulse guns at enemies and dropping and rolling, and she barely remembered to drink, or eat.

The main character was just about to engage her love interest in a sizzling, high-energy conversation when there came a puff of warm air at her ear.

Tenten jumped, and hit Ctrl+S to save her work, just in case.

"So I'm a workaholic," Neji's low baritone murmured in her ear.

Her heart pounded to life, and Tenten's eyes widened. She had not been keeping track of Neji's movements nor position. A sideways glance told her that his chair was currently empty, and that he was wearing a smirk just a hair's breadth from her face.

"Did you decide to quit being a workaholic?" Tenten groused, a little annoyed at being yanked back into reality. She glanced at the time on the corner of her screen - it had been three hours since they'd sat down to work.

"No," Neji said, and returned to his office chair, swiveling it so he faced her. (There were two sets of desks in the room - Neji had bought his own worktable and chair, for the times he camped out here instead of going home.) "I was merely taking a break."

Tenten huffed. "Well, I haven't got a chapter done yet. You can return to your slave labor for Sasuke."

Lilac eyes narrowed. "This isn't slave labor."

"Shh. Let me return to work." She turned back to her screen. Writing wasn't really working to her, though - it was more like an alternate reality that she lived in.

Neji's chair squeaked - he got up and returned to her side, tracing a finger along her ear. "It seems that I've passed my workaholic bug on to you."

Tenten's breath caught in her throat. "What?"

He was looking smugly at her when she turned to face him. "You haven't looked away the entire time I've been sitting here," he explained. "And it's a Saturday, no less."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "And how, pray tell, did I obtain your workaholic bug? You know I don't get distracted from writing easily."

He leaned over and planted his hands on her armrests, trapping her in her seat. Tenten swallowed, licked her lips. Neji's attention dipped to her mouth.

"You must've contracted it yourself when you kissed me this morning, Tententen," he said quietly, returning his gaze to her eyes.

He still remembered that? Tenten gulped, and remained staring at him. His lips were so close - his entire body was so close. "Well, um, I-"

"I have a theory about curing it," Neji continued, leaning a little closer.

She couldn't move, didn't want to think what he could possibly have in mind. There was no point in causing herself disappointment, after all. "Which is?"

"I repeat the actions in reverse." Without waiting for her to respond, Neji closed the distance between them, slowly covering her lips with his. His mouth was warm and soft against hers, and Tenten knew she wanted more.

She was staring at him in shock when he pulled away, still too stunned to believe that Neji had just voluntarily kissed her. "Um."

He straightened and cocked his head, studying her. "Did it work?"

Tenten blinked stupidly at him. What would be the best course of action in this situation? She could ask for an explanation, or... She breathed in, and coaxed her lips into a small smile. "I'm not sure, Neji, I hear my work calling for my attention. Maybe you need to try harder to undo the effects of the workaholic bug."

"Oh?" Neji studied her for a moment, his regal features molding into an expression of mild interest. "You mean, like this?"

This time, when he leaned in, she was prepared. Neji slanted his mouth over hers, nipping and licking at her lower lip, and Tenten felt her senses reel, felt herself respond eagerly towards him, parting her lips to his. Their tongues tangled; she felt her body heat in response.

It seemed as if an eternity had passed before Neji finally pulled away, and licked his lips. The intensity in his eyes made her heart pound doubly hard. Tenten caught her breath, stared at him.

"I thought you said you weren't marriage material," she blurted.

He lifted an eyebrow in question. "How does that come in?"

"Well, you kissed me," Tenten fumbled awkwardly. "Surely, with a kiss like that, you'd find someone who'd deem you worthy of marriage."

There was a heartbeat of silence between them.

"Would you?" he asked.

She stared blankly at him. "Would I what?"

"Deem me worthy of marriage," he clarified, though his expression betrayed none of his thoughts.

Tenten gulped. Her eyes skittered away from him. "Well of course I would, you're a good person, Neji."

"If you..." He swallowed, and tried again. "Since you appeared to enjoy that kiss so much, does that mean you're interested?"

Heat crept up to her cheeks, and she looked away, unable to meet his gaze. A kiss wasn't what led to marriage, but she and Neji were so close that one could argue they were as good as married.

"Tenten?" Neji drew closer, and he placed warm fingertips beneath her chin, tipping her face towards his.

She met his eyes reluctantly, afraid of what she might find in them.

He was looking at her intently, in a way that stole her breath, and she didn't know what to think.

Slowly, very slowly, he leaned in, and pressed another kiss to her lips.

She didn't pull away (her heart was beating oh-so-hard) and she gaped at him, trying to understand this set of actions that she'd never seen from him, even if she'd written about it countless times.

"What's this supposed to mean?" she breathed.

Neji blinked, and the moment was broken. He looked away, to save his pride. "Well, I was just-"

But she knew she couldn't let him finish, couldn't let him escape and bury this new possibility that had opened up between them.

She followed him as he pulled away, leaning in and kissing him on the lips. "I think you're worthy of marriage, Neji Hyuuga. You deserve every bit of happiness you can find. Even if the rest of your family sucks and your uncle tries to make you his pawn."

He blinked again, this time in surprise. Tenten knew she'd struck a nerve. "I..."

"Well, the short version is, I'd gladly marry you if no one else wants to," she told him with a grin.

Neji moved his lips, but no sound issued from them. It was a few moments before he managed a smile. "Are you saying I'm so incorrigible that no one else would have me for a husband?"

She beamed. "Yes, you're very aggravating, Neji."

"And you'd marry me, you said?" He looked at her almost hopefully.

Tenten raised her eyebrows. "I hope I'm not giving you ideas. Are you desperate, now?"

"No." The corners of his lips quirked, and Neji found her hand, tugging her to her feet. She stood awkwardly in front of him - they were standing close to each other, but not uncomfortably so. "But I like the idea of us marrying, especially with all that's been happening over the past 24 hours."

Her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline. And her heart was fluttering. "Really, Neji? Did I infect you with some other bug this time?"

"Maybe you did," he said quietly, and drew her against himself. Tenten welcomed the embrace. He was a comforting presence against her. "Are you going to look for a cure for that now?"

A chuckle rumbled from her chest. "I don't suppose such a cure would be found in bed," she said dryly.

"And you say my mind lives in the gutter," he retorted warmly, pressing his lips to her neck.

Her breath caught in her throat. "So, this marrying thing," Tenten began.

"What about it?" Another kiss, and one further down her shoulder.

"You're serious about it," she said, hardly able to believe her ears.

"If I am?" More kisses, this time back up her neck.

"You never told me you liked me!" she hissed, trying to feel offended that he'd kept this a secret from her. But she was still feeling very warm inside.

Neji drew away to meet her eyes. Amusement danced in his eyes. "You never told me you liked me either, so I'd say we're even."

She blushed, but frowned at him anyway. "It's still not fair."

"What's not fair?" he smiled, and kissed the corner of her mouth.

"You kept a secret from me!" Tenten groused. "I had no idea at all!"

"That's why it's a secret," he answered, smug.

"But I'm your best friend!" she continued, her forehead creased.

"How about I make it up to you?" There was a certain desire in his eyes that made Tenten's throat go dry, and she licked her lips in response.

"Why don't we see if this bug can be cured," she muttered.

"I agree," he said mildly. "And I'm sure you agree that the bedroom is the best place to conduct our investigation."

Her body grew hot, and she didn't have anything to say against that suggestion.

"We should do it as soon as possible," she acknowledged, "In order to find all possible cures."

Neji merely smirked, and led the way out of the study.

* * *

_A/N: Epilogue next week! To all of you who have put up with this, thank you. ;) Such a relief to have finished writing this lol :P I did think about including a sexy scene in here somewhere, but it didn't pan out. Sorry about that. :P_

_As always, thank you for taking the time to leave a review! :)_


	7. Epilogue

_Final chapter - to all who have hopped aboard, thank you for joining me for the ride! I'm so, so glad this is over with. :P_

_Naruto, Harry Potter, and their characters do not belong to me._

* * *

**Hello Wizard World**

**Epilogue**

Travelling by the London Underground was definitely not on Tenten's list of favorite pastimes. It was crowded, noisy, and probably very unhygienic, with how several people were crammed in the same train car, and breathing the same air.

The one advantage the train did serve was that the crowd had pressed her bodily into Neji.

This, Tenten did not mind. She probably could spend forever squashed next to Neji.

"You're poking into my hip," she grumbled.

Behind her, Neji lifted an eyebrow. "Pardon?"

Tenten blinked, and realized that her words didn't come out quite as she imagined them to be. She fought a smile down and turned slightly to look him in the eye. "Your wallet. It's in your jeans pocket and it's poking me."

"Ah." Neji's eyes lit in understanding, though he didn't make to reposition the offending article. "Should I be poking you elsewhere, then?"

A snort burst from her throat before she could decide if she wanted to be polite. Tenten rolled her eyes, and elbowed him lightly in the ribs; he grunted. "One would think you were greatly deprived of polite upbringing," she informed him. "With the way your thoughts swing from gentlemanly to crude in the space of seconds."

"Right." Neji looked smugly down at her; he slipped his hand into hers, and fingered the band around her ring finger. "And yet you put up with me."

"I had no choice, believe me," she retorted with a smile. "Someone threatened me with marriage."

He continued to look at her in barely-masked amusement, and Tenten grinned.

"So, are you excited?" she asked.

"Can't say I am too keen on it," he answered. "We don't even know if this Leaky Cauldron place actually exists."

"It totally does! Mrs Figg even pointed it out on a map!" Tenten protested. "I bet there'll be some people heading there, especially since it's the weekend."

Almost a year had passed since the day they'd met Mrs Arabella Figg and buried Mad Eye's body. The war was now officially over, Mrs Figg had informed Tenten, and business was back in full swing over in Diagon Alley. Tenten was beyond excited to be able to discover what the magical world was like, and spend some of their hard-won gold.

When Neji said nothing to refute her statement, Tenten continued, "And I definitely want a unicorn - they have to sell those!"

He heaved a patient sigh. "Didn't the _Monster Book_ say that they aren't easily caught?"

She sent him a mischievous grin. "Well, books can always be wrong."

Neji shook his head, and did not bother to object.

"George was saying that he has some new joke products up at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes!" a girl said excitedly in the same train car.

Tenten flicked her eyes towards the source of the voice - it didn't hurt to be discreet. Behind her, Neji was probably doing the same.

"Despite how helpful their inventions have been, they're still prank toys," another female voice said disapprovingly. This second voice belonged to a pretty young woman with bushy brown hair. "You should probably ask about the effects of the toys before trying them out."

The first girl, a redhead with straight hair and freckles, gave a frown. "Oh, don't be such a spoilsport, Hermione, you know those jokes don't do permanent damage."

Next to her, a tall, gangly man grinned. He had the same red hair and freckles, and was probably related to her in some way. "Don't argue, ladies," he cajoled, looking around the train. "We should've tried Muggle transport early on in the war - it sure saves a lot of energy!"

Tenten's eyes grew wide when her eyes landed on the fourth person in the group - Harry Potter himself, with that messy black hair, green eyes, and round glasses. Who would've thought to see wizards on public transportation?

She turned back to Neji, and whispered, "It's Harry Potter!"

Neji looked dully back at her. "And?"

"He's famous!" Tenten explained, "Remember?"

At her words, Neji granted them another cursory look - but his disinterest did not wane. "He seems like a normal person to me."

Neji did have a point. Tenten pursed her lips, and continued sending Harry Potter and his friends covert looks. If the war was over, then that meant that Harry Potter had to have defeated that scary snake man, who had given Tenten nightmares on more than one occasion. Yet he wasn't putting on airs, or strutting around.

"He does seem pretty normal," Tenten acknowledged. In fact, Harry Potter and his friends dressed just like Neji and herself did - in simple shirts and jeans.

They had opted to go without robes or strange clothing first, if just to scout out the location, and get new clothes to blend in if necessary. Tenten was very relieved that she and Neji had not been wearing Harry Potter's old school robes today - that would have just been too awkward.

"What do you think they're doing on a train?" she whispered to Neji. "Shouldn't they be on broomsticks?"

"Probably the same reason why we're on a train," he answered dryly. "Parking is scarce around the Charing Cross Station."

Tenten rolled her eyes again. "I've never seen a space where you can park brooms there."

"Then that may be the precise reason," came Neji's bland answer. Tenten didn't know if she wanted to laugh. Neji's sense of humor could be odd at times.

They continued their discreet observation on the quartet until they reached Charing Cross Station, upon which Tenten tugged Neji along with her, while keeping an eye on the wizards.

The distance between Tenten, Neji, and Harry Potter's group was such that they saw the quartet enter what seemed to be a pub on a busy street. There was no sign hanging out over the pedestrians - the pub was tucked away between two larger stores, and set back a little, painted in dark grey. Most of the pedestrians actually seemed to miss seeing the establishment, curiously enough.

By the time Neji and Tenten stepped into The Leaky Cauldron, Harry Potter's group was pulling away from the bar counter - perhaps they only stopped for a quick chat.

Tenten dragged Neji through the back door of the pub, where Harry's group had disappeared into, though all they saw, now, was just an empty alley, and no trace of the four.

"They disappeared," Tenten muttered.

Neji shrugged. "I guess we tap the magic brick, then."

They counted twelve bricks along the wall, and seven bricks up; Tenten gave the brick in question three taps (it was not worn smooth, despite the number of people who must have had tapped it in its lifetime).

As soon as her fingers touched the brick a third time, the wall began to shimmer. Tenten took a step back in surprise, her back bumping into Neji's chest. Before them, the bricks began to move, each rotating upon its own axis as a little hole opened up in the middle of the brick wall, slowly growing larger to form an archway.

Past the archway lay a bustling cobblestone street - people hurried around in all sorts of colorful robes, and various quaint shopfronts stared invitingly at them.

Tenten's eyes lit up; she smiled at Neji, and he followed as she pulled him through the archway. Contrary to what she expected, the archway did not close in upon itself - Tenten guessed that the wizarding world made it easy for their own to enter the world of normal people, but tried to hide themselves from the majority of the human population.

With a shrug, she turned back to Diagon Alley. Harry Potter and his friends were nowhere to be seen - they had been dressed in normal clothes as well, and Tenten realized that no one was staring at her and Neji for having a different fashion sense from the rest of their kind.

"Is it like anything you expected?" she asked Neji with a smile. She squeezed his hand and began to walk slowly down the street, unwilling to miss little details.

"I didn't know what to expect," he admitted, pale eyes sweeping over the various storefronts.

If she were perfectly honest, Tenten had not quite known what to be prepared for, either. The Diagon Alley of today seemed cheerful and busy - probably a far cry from what it was like a year ago, when a war was waging in the wizarding world.

To a side, there was Eyelops Owl Emporium, where owls in various cages crowded the display window, Second Hand Brooms, in which polished brooms covered the walls of the shop, and Flourish and Blotts, where a variety of colorful books were arranged in the storefront window. On the other side of the street, peeling gold letters read "Ollivanders", with a painted wand next to the shop name. A cacophony could be heard over the crowd, originating from the Magical Menagerie (Tenten thought she saw rats playing jump rope with their tails), and Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions lured potential patrons with jewel-toned robes in its display windows.

Tenten took a while to absorb the entirety of the street - her head spun with all the new information, and she couldn't decide which store she wanted to visit first.

"I don't know if we have enough money on us," she whispered to Neji, who slanted an exasperated look at her.

"Why don't we get an idea of what we actually want?" he suggested. "Since we aren't wizards, some of these stores aren't relevant to us anyway, like the wand shop."

"That is true," she admitted, scanning the rows of shops once again. "What are you interested in taking a closer look at?"

Neji gave a slight shrug, and Tenten smiled. "Well, I think I might have an idea."

* * *

Three hours later, they slumped into the al fresco seats outside a tea shop, steaming cups of tea on the table between them.

"I can't believe no one sells unicorns here," Tenten whined in disappointment. "I thought they would be well-known enough for someone or other to have them in stock!"

The look in Neji's eyes clearly said, _I told you so_, and she glowered at him.

"At least I got a statue of one," she mumbled, fishing around in her purse for the little figurine. It was pure-white and measured a couple inches high, and when she set it on the iron-wrought table, the creature pawed the ground and whinnied, before galloping in a circle.

Tenten felt a smile creep up her lips. This would have to do until she got her very own unicorn someday.

"It would fit well in a display cabinet," Neji commented. "I have no wish to see it crunching beneath my feet one night."

She frowned at him for being so morbid. "It can go in your trophy cabinet," she pointed out. "It's not like you place any sentimental value in old school debate competition awards."

He shrugged. "Fine with me."

"We can have a little zoo in there!" she suddenly realized. A smile spread on her lips; Neji watched her with faint amusement.

"Only if you promise not to go overboard with it," he allowed.

"Fine." Tenten grinned. "Need a spare invisibility cloak to hide from your fans?"

At that, Neji cracked a smile. "They won't be after me when we get married. Maybe you might need one instead."

"One for each of us, then," she concluded. "I just hope they don't cost too much."

Neji shrugged - they had not come across invisibility cloaks yet - perhaps the shops on the other end of Diagon Alley carried them.

"I really want to try brewing some potions, though," Tenten added thoughtfully. "I've flipped through Magical Drafts and Potions - there were some potions that did not require magic... and I thought I saw runes at the apothecary for simple potions."

He glanced suspiciously at her. "I'm not having my entire house burn down in some magical accident, Tenten."

"Our house, you mean," she corrected him with a smile. "Maybe I should stick to simple potions then."

"Or none." Neji gave her an imperious look. "Stick with what you know - you don't have the resources to deal with an emergency."

She pouted, knowing that he was right. "What about a broomstick?"

"We have nowhere to fly it, and we don't have the magic required in case of emergencies," Neji countered.

Tenten made a face at him. A self-writing quill might have been helpful, if she wasn't already doing all her writing on the computer.

"I think I want a book on runes," she said finally, "And more books about magical creatures. Maybe we can go on an adventure to find unicorns someday."

Neji wasn't convinced, and she laughed. "I'm kidding! Maybe."

"It would be helpful to have a wizard friend or two," he allowed. "Then at least someone would know how to prevent you from getting boils on your nose."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Be glad that I'm not giving you boils on your butt, Neji."

"I'm sure you'd enjoy that view," he said mildly. Tenten winced.

At length, they finished their tea, and set off for the end of Diagon Alley that they haven't had the chance to explore yet.

"We could get us a wedding gift," Tenten piped up suddenly.

Neji frowned. "From this place? I'd prefer a non-magical item, thank you."

She sighed, and grinned. "Yeah, you'd prefer a faster laptop for work, huh?"

At that, Neji quirked a smile. "I wouldn't object to that."

"Workaholic," Tenten muttered beneath her breath.

"I'll prove how much of a workaholic I'm not when we get home," he said in her ear, sending a shiver down her spine.

"Oh yeah?" She grinned. This was an easy challenge, one that both of them enjoyed.

"I'll give you my word on that," he promised, lifting his eyebrows suggestively.

Tenten smirked, elbowed him in the side, and he grunted. "Pervert."

"Only yours, Tententen." Neji slipped his hand into hers and pulled her close.

"I'm so honored," she answered flatly, though her grin gave her away. "What about we return here another time, when we have a better idea of what we want?"

"A better idea of what _you_ want," he corrected. "But I certainly will not object to going home."

Tenten grinned, and steered them towards the exit of Diagon Alley. "Raring to prove that you aren't a workaholic, huh?"

He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "Always."

**END**

* * *

_A/N: The idea to use runes for muggle potion-making comes from "The Arithmancer" by White Squirrel, in which Hermione is a math whiz who invents her own spells. ;) Give it a read sometime if you're into math/science-y stuff._

_Special thanks to those of you who have left encouraging comments throughout. :P I never really intended for HWW to be this long, and I'm so glad I'm over the huge mental block this fic was giving me._

_Coming up next Friday: Nights in the Sleepless Town - featuring Hooker!Tenten, and set in Japan, 1983. ;) _


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